Slashdot Mirror
Kansas Anti-Creationism Professor Resigns
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.
Could've used a bit of intelligent design.
I've just Creationism'd the first post
Isn't that just a bit extreme?
Why can't Kansas just secede from the union?
The United State of Kansas.
Sorta has a ring to it doesn't it?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
He resigned as department chair, but as of that article, hasn't quit entirely. Just in case you don't want to RTFA (not that that happens here).
The writeup is a bit unclear. He only resigned as the chair of his department, he is still teaching there.
One of his emails talked about how he couldn't wait to teach this course to throw his position against ID in "their big fat face." Okay, if you profess (ahemm) to be a professor and you can't muster up any more intelligent way to communicate than that I submitt you have no business teaching at a university. Kindergarten? Maybe.
The poster makes it sound like Professor Mirecki isn't teaching at the university anymore. TFA states that he is; he only stepped down from his position as dept. chair.
I applaud the guy for having the courage to recognize ID for what it is, a (weak) philosophical argument, not science. But as head of a religious studies department, attacking a given faith is just unprofessional.
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.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I read this story earlier today on HNN. He resigned as department chair, not as a professor. He's still doing all the same stuff, but with less paperwork. I know that in many departments, chair is a generally detested position because although it carries some prestige it often carries little real authority and ALWAYS comes with scads of paperwork that prevent academics from spending time on their first love (research or teaching, as the case may be). So the guy isn't out of a job or anything; the move is largely symbolic.
Make cheese not war 8:)
If these men can beat up a prof for saying things out loud, then its obvious the evolutionary process left them by the wayside, and they grew a up as apes. No wonder they dont believe in evolution.
Woot! I am from kansas
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?
A recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization 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." Mirecki apologized for those comments.
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.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It's not a good idea to deride students or christians, and it's not as if every christian thinks evolution is wrong. I think it would have been a good thing to hold a class like that in a state like that, but if the prof is going to be confrontational about it, that's going to cheapen the whole point. Teaching ID in anything outside a philosophy class is such a crazy idea and so easily debunked that being negative is entirely unessicary, plain facts will do.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
He should not have written what he wrote.
The assailants should not have attacked him for it.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Is that too cliche?
Hopefully I got this in before the inevitable flame-spewing deluge of trolls converges on this post.
Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-Christian sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles.
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.
resigned
On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course.
Presumably these Christians haven't heard of such advice as "turn the other cheek". What loser came up with that idiotic advice anyway?
(Yeah, I know it's not stated anywhere that these were Christians, but be realistic).
And have you seen the faces on these guys (Dobson, Falwell, et al.)? They're awfully slap-worthy.
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.
bloody bible bashers :-P
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Remember, there are a lot of Books in the Bible. Some of the older ones (Old Testament) have a lot of stuff about smiting and even killing or enslaving your enemies.
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.
The professor should teach a computer science course on the topic of evolutionary algorithms and The Matrix. This way he can get religion and evolutionary theory in the same topic. Best of all, it's perfectly legal!
It always gives me the warm fuzzies when I see people who call themselves Christians going out and beating someone up for having different beliefs. It makes you wonder if they've even heard of the New Testament.
Someone else was beaten or killed in the name of religion! *gasp*
What's the total up to now? A few billion?
Question everything
He thought he'd poke some fun at idiots. He might have expected some pranks, or even an assault.
What he discovered was a bit more than that, though. Not some semi-random beating from idiots who recognized him. Rather, that it's a bit more organized than that. Maybe they told him his national press was really, really unappreciated, and that if he didn't start backing down, he was in for worse.
Supposing something like that happened, might not you also resign?
The choices of prefix for this post... I'm curious, why is he anti-creationist rather than pro-evolutionist? Now, this may be innocuous, but choice of words can reveal bias.
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.
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
The Christian thing to is to beat people who disagree with you, not accept and love them. Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what Jesus would have done, amen.
A recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization 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." Mirecki apologized for those comments.
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.
The night is black
Without a moon
The air is thick and still
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torch lit hill
Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right
Confident their ways are best
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill
They say there are strangers who threaten us
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves
Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I love my country! Free speech is mostly used to try and stop other people from expressing themselves.
Creationists believe that the book of Genesis is the truth, but where does it say in the bible that the bible is the only truth? Are creationists also saying that God is not powerful enough to have created the earth and everything in it by usingevolution. Evolution is a miracle! Just look at the statistical probability of one species suddenly changing into another, I have no idea what that number is but I was once told that the chances of a tornado passing through a junk yard an leaving behind a fully functional 747 jet, fueled and ready to fly is a walk through a park compared to chances of evolution happening. What would you say if a tornado passed through a junkyard and left behind a 747? Wow, now that is a miracle! Oh and by the way Jesus has dark skin and he farts.
Never Compromise
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/07/mirecki_m um_details_beating/?city_local
Apparently there is some question about his physical assault story. There seems to be some inconsistency in it. Witnesses before and after the "event" seem to discredit his story. He personally has said that he will not discuss the assault anymore. Search the net a bit for more information.
You probably shouldn't click this.
If it were any other group that he were insulting in his letters, it would be considered hate mail and he'd be run up a pole for it.
When a whole nation is dedicating itself to anti-Islamism, while Christianism is fucking it up the ass (how's that for "poorly-worded"?), it's only fair that in a state like Kansas, made infamous worldwide by that ludicrous anti-science christianism, scientists would have an anti-Christianism sentiment and it's only fair that they make it heard by all concerned. If they won't, who will?! Don't kid yourself, Science, and scientists are under attack by the deliberate liars and peddlers of self-serving nonsense.
When will you realize it's all one in the same?
FLR
intelligent design proponents have some doubts about his beating claims
so they are going to engage in a fully scientifically rigorous investigation of the claims and their evidence
because anything that sullies the reputation of intelligent design, you know, has to be proven or disproven in the most impartial and logically consistent manner
because we wouldn't want passion informing matters of fact, right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
here in Mexico. There was a student riot and strike (or something similar), they (the "students") shut down school. Some of them participated in violent protests against the government, and were sent to jail.
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.
OK, so... why do fundamentalists get so worked up over this evolution thing? The Bible says not a darned thing about *HOW* God created everything. And it's pretty easy to get around the "well, it says it only took a day to make ____" -- considering it also says "a thousand years are like a day and a day like a thousand years". But all holy-textual concerns aside, it's like arguing about the tool. No rational scientist would argue that God is provably nonexistent... due to the utter lack of hard data available! No rational Christian would argue that God HAD to have used a non-evolutionary mechanism to create the world... due to the lack of scripture on the matter! Evolution is the hammer. Life on Earth is the spice rack. Who build the spice rack? Who knows! But we know they used a HAMMER because there are hammer marks all over the wood. And nails were involved. So just grow up and admit you don't know EVERYTHING! Both sides!
As a graduate student I can tell you that you are underestimating how petty academics are...
It's easy to understand the conflict here. Of all people, scholars of religion are going to see how different religions absorb ideas from one another. I guess it tends to make them rather skeptical that any particular religion has access to some unique revelation. When you combine this skepticism with Christian fundamentalism in general and intelligent design in particular, there's going to be some discord.
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.
sorry - I couldn't stop the typing.
...would people be equally outraged if the Religious Studies Chair at a religious school, let's say BYU, were to badmouth atheism? My guess is that it probably happens all the time.
Some things you just can not explain.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The only difference between religion and mythology is that mythology was the nonsense that people used to beleive, and religion is the nonsense they beleive today.
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)
That would be kinda cool. I'd take that class.
Have there been any efforts to boycott goods and services from Kansas? Has anyone made a list of manufacturers who are either based out of Kansas, or have significant factories there?
Indeed, I would imagine that there are many people out there who are sickened by these blatant attacks on science by those who most likely fail to even comprehend the basic elements of the subject. Perhaps the best way to let these extremists know that they're wrong is to hit them right in their wallets.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
In some regards, the Intelligent Design groups have a point. The way that our society treats intelligent men and women, it is clear that it is not a dominant trait. The way humans chose to breed and the way that the powers that be cut down anyone who dares question authority ... one would guess that intelligence could not have evolved in the human species.
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 out as people realization that Intelligent Design is not only bad science. It is bad religion. The premise behind the belief is that the writers of the Intelligent Design book can see the hand of God in the gaps of the fossil record as currently understood by evolutionists.
The premise of intelligent design is that our God is a second imperfect God who did a shoddy job when he put together the earth. God did such a bad job that we can see the gaps in the fossil record.
If you held to a perfect God theory, then you would expect to find a perfect chain of evolution in the fossil record. For that matter, studying evolution would be a very spiritual and fulfilling science in that you are studying a perfect work of a divine creator.
As more people seriously contemplate the theory of Intelligent Design, I suspect that they will find it lacking in both scientific merit and theological merit.
On the far side of the debate. There was one area I wish science would bring to the table. That is that there is a lot of garbage philosophy stuffed into science. This was one of the demons that Karl Popper chased. Both Hegel and Marx were trying to guise philosophies as science. Both Hegel and Marx were claiming to see the future direction of the evolution of man. Today, I see a quite a few philosophies trying to gain the highground of scientific merit in by similarly perverting science.
My point in this rambling is that good science is not in conflict with good theology because science (the study of the way things are) is also the study of the "divine creation."
What we see all of the time in these silly debates is crappy science in conflict with crappy theology.
It is a great shame that the proponents of Intelligent Design seek to deprive children of quality education because they have a bad theology. Similarly, I get sad when I see wanks pushing their personal believes in the guise of evolutionary psychology or that Hegelian/Marxists nonesense.
Both good science and good theology seem hard to come by these days.
at a group as this professor did, the "anti" label is well earned.
By Rush. Can't remember the album name - something about pictures. Best played very loud. The drummer is just amazing.
I was watching Fox News and they made it seem like he was beaten because he wanted to teach an Intelligent Design course. Man you can't even trust the time in the corner of the screen on that channel.
"..and was subsequently beaten for his troubles."
ah. good ol' religeon. "We praise peace, and if you don't like it, will kill you."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
MOD PARENT UP!!!
I agree totally.
"Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING." ???
What if I want to yell?
I guess this just goes to show that the guys at FunReports.com were right -- they listed the 3rd worst science job as a Kansas Biology Teacher.
:-(
The US is making distinct moves to turn into the Christian[sic] version of Iran...
Thats a very importantlesson the Jesus teaches.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
People seem to confuse the very tiny number of people who attacked this professor and who maintain a non-scientific militaint anti evolusionist stance with the much larger group of people who call themselves "Christians".
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.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I'm so fucking sick of these people. The fact that this guy calls a spade a spade (ie. calling crazy religious freaks "crazy religious freaks") and has to then resign is unbelievable.
End RantMy roomate is a Christian, and he's a standup guy, thinks creationists are crazy, hates war and the like. He said to me the other day "You know, I really like the term 'Religious Right'. It implies that there's a 'Religious Center' and a 'Religious Left'."
This too, will end.
1. Dogmatic Christians pushing their belief system as the anti-science.
The problem is that Christians are trying to claim that their fairy tales constitute real science. People can believe whatever wacko shit that they want, but as soon as they start claiming that the Jolly Green Giant, or Jesus, or any such bullshit is science, people (like myself) who are real scientists have to defend the facts. When "facts" aren't "facts" any more, then society is in real trouble.
I don't respond to AC's.
If we were able to find inconsistencies in his story, that would mean we would be able to detect design. Good thing for him that's not within the realm of science.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
They didn't. It turns out that his "beating" appears to have been fabricated.
die theo-tard
"referring to religious individuals as "fundies"" referring to religous fundimentalism as something they refer to themselves as...oooooo beat his ass for that one!
Plus studying religeon you will come across,and use the term fundies.
"a nice slap in their big fat face""
and
"others described as "repugnant and vile" "
both useless statement out of context. People consider evolution
as "repugnant and vile".
It's just frustrating that they are relying on someones opinion that he said something "repugnant and vile". What don't the print what was repugnant and vile?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I live in Lawrence and work at the University of Kansas (KU).
t reated_after_roadside_beating/
m um_details_beating/
s tep_down_ku_post/ and http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/08/mirecki_r esigns_leadership_position/ and http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/dec/08/ne_mirec ki_folo/
a il.pdf
e nt_design_course_canceled/?ku_news
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
He was right to laugh at the fundies, he was right to deride their beliefs, dishonestly presented as "science", and he has A right to write any damned thing he wants.
The blurb sorta implies he deserved it. Reaaally.
The only mistake he made was teaching in America. If you mock loonies, you get beaten on the road by the loonies, then your superiors fire you for deriding the loonies. Cults is cults is cults. They use their membership in interestingly high places to sack people they don't want heard.
He "incited" a beating, huh? Usually, in science, when you mock a loonietoon for his perpetual motion machine, the perpetual motion cult doesn't beat you in the head on a lonely road, THEN use their contacts to get you fired for making fun of them in your emails.
If Sagan or Isaac Asimov were alive, they could be beaten to death with impunity. Yes, to death: if you beat anyone in the head, you're trying to kill them. Head shots cause brain damage and even death.
The Fundies, with their allies in the Republican party, have been making huge inroads in cowing universities into sacking "biased" professors, "bias" meaning has a sane opinion in opposition to a looney, and having the raw testicular power to speak up on those opinions.
The fundies are crazy, and they won't take no for an answer. There is no "other side" fighting the fundies. It's the fundies against everyone else in America, labeled "liberals" for easy demonification.
Hell doesn't exist. But those who believe in it are eagerly making one on Earth. Fuck the fake "Christians".
Actually there are several benefits to being a department chair, usually including a teaching load reduction and admistrative assistance (eg a secretary). It's not just symbolic. There is very little prestige in being a chair inside academia, since most people know that it is a service position rather than some sort of honor. Outside academia it might be impressive, if that's the symbolic value you're talking about.
Isn't that kind of like being "anti-goblins" or "anti-flat-earth"?
Please, let us not participate in this reframing of language.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I'll have you know, your stereotype is incorrect. In fact, my last orgasm involved FreeBSD, not Linux.
What happened to free speech? Did they choose to exempt themselves from their own laws like the US government did at camp X-Ray? Oh yeah I forgot, these people make the law...
if you are a Christian, then focusing on anything accept what Jesus taught is wrong. Point in fact, that mean you missed the whole point of Jesus.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yet another victim of the US's religious extremists. Who says Iraqis have all the fun. :-(
No worse then eradicating an entire way of life, due to the fact they believe something other then you.
Its a common thread throughout history with so called 'religious people'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
if you don´t think the way that they want you to think, ..
you get suicide bombed the personal flavour of killing in the 21st century
intellegent design and creatianism have backdoored themselves into classes silently and now somebody opposes this undermining strategy by pointing
out loud that I.D. and Creationism has nothing to do with sience and so should not be tought in public schools. then he is a threat to people who pursue such a tactic,
but I would say he should withstand the presure and pursue a scientific debunking of ID (which is mostly the same than creationism, except with
pseudo scientific phrases among ) or we will see wichtes on the stake again.
Perhaps the qualifers were generated by the media, to push an agenda, to slant opinion.
Its not like its never happened before.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When you claim that God does not exist, you claim to have infinite knowledge about the universe. How can you claim to have infinite knowledge about the universe unless you are an infinite being? By claiming to be God, your very position collapses upon itself.
Do you believe in the invisible punk unicorn?
If no, does that mean that you have a non-IPU belief system that you follow?
Is it meaningful to create new "belief systems" for every non-belief you have? What's the point?
American-style protestants are going further and further towards the nutso-crazy-idiotic anti-science anti-progress anti-secularism anti-other-religions stereotype.
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.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Fixed. Oh, and PS, if you can't respect peoples' choice in religion enough that you must refer to their beliefs as "fairy tales", I would hesitate to respect any of your work or opinions, scientific or not.
Artist: Rush
Song Title: "Witch Hunt part III of 'Fear'"
Album: Moving Pictures
Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
Lyrics by Neil Peart
Trivia:
While bassist Geddy Lee is also the lead singer of Rush, the lion's share (read: practically all, save for the odd song here and there) of the lyrics for Rush's songs are written by drummer Neil Peart.
I talk about stuff.
The Inevitable Evolution of the Intelligent Design
As a Kansan, a Scientist, and a Christian, I am fed up with the current debate over the "Theory of Intelligent Design". The root of the problem is in the lack of an author for the ID theory. There is no confusion when people reference the theory of Evolution. If they don't explicitly say "Darwinian Evolution", they won't be offended if the listener assumes the "Darwinian" part. So to clarify the issue, I will try to explain a particular theory of Intelligent Design, told to me by the unfamous thinker Christina Eckswan. The most interesting aspect of this particular theory is that it is not at all a contradiction of traditional Darwinian Evolution theory.
The CE theory of Intelligent Design can be summed up simply- Given the existence
of intelligent life in the universe, which has the ability to make choices about it's own reproduction, the universe must inevitably be considered to be an "Intelligent Design".
The key word to focus on, that bridges the the CE theory of Intelligent Design, with Darwin's theory of Evolution, is "Domestication". Domestication is defined at
dictionary.com as
-----
Domestication:
1) To cause to feel comfortable at home; make domestic.
2) To adopt or make fit for domestic use or life.
3) a) To train or adapt (an animal or plant) to live in a human environment and be of
use to humans.
b) To introduce and accustom (an animal or plant) into another region; naturalize.
-----
When one talks about the domestication of the dog(or wolf), one is describing a process of evolution or natural selection, whereby humans have bred wilder dogs to successfully create a new class of animals which is fit to serve one or many specific purposes. It seems obvious to me, but perhaps requires further argument for others, that most modern breeds of dog must be thought of as "Intelligent Designs". The intelligence here is the human, and the process of design is the controlling of reproductive options, resulting in the creation of a new animal which serves the purpose of the designer.
This should not come as a radical new concept. This process occurs all the time. Just about every plant we eat, has a specific character and nature, far removed from it's wild cousins, because of the farmers that exerted their will over the reproductive options of that plant's ancestors. Likewise cattle and livestock also have a very specific nature, that is obviously the end result of conscious intelligent design. The aspect of the debate over ID which enrages many scientists is the belief that ID theory is a thinly veiled attempt to introduce religious doctrine into classrooms. While this may be the motive for some proponents of ID, it is critical for us to set asside our passions and prejudices, and deal with this issue as adults, for the benefit of our children. This means tackling what I specified as the root cause of the confusion- a lack of clarity about what "Intelligent Design" means. That means looking at the specific theories, and
discussing their various aspects in the appropriate context. Discuss their scientific merits in science classes, their political ramifications in social studies classes, and their religious implications in religious and history classes. And give each theory as much time as it deserves, based on how much widespread intellectual interest is attributed to each theory. If this CE ID theory is dismissed by almost everyone, then clearly it needn't be discussed in schools. If it becomes the most popular theory under the heading of Intelligent Design, then clearly it should be discussed in schools to help our children understand what the adults are so up in arms about. There was a prophetic quote in the movie "Inherit the Wind" which was about the original heated debate and judicial trial over allowing the teaching of Dar
He resigned his CHAIR - he still retains his professor position.
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.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Methodist churches have different views than Catholic churches.
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.
And by "refreshing", I mean "totally horrible".
Being anti-fundie isn't "anti-Christian". I really don't see what's Christian about creationism or beating professors or getting them fired.
He's anti-insane fuckies. And their supporters in the University got him fired, one way or another, after others of their persuasion beat the fuck out of him -- actually, attempted his murder, because any beating can cause death from complications if nothing else.
He's up against millions of fundie loons who believe the earth was made 4000 years ago, that Adam was first up, and that Dominion should be the goal of good fundies everywhere in the U.S. They call themselves Dominionists: they want God's Law in the U.S., and like all fundie loonies, eventually they'll start beating, killing, and burning. It's just a matter of time.
The problem, for all of you outside the U.S. trying to understand this, is that they are a solid supermajority in the southern and western states. Seeing a 30-something percent figure for their numbers is misleading -- they OWN Kansas, Missouri, Mississipi, Lousiana, Alabama, the Virginias, the Carolinas, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Iowa, Southern Illinois and Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee... I'm too tired to type any more. Suffice it to say, we in the sane world have a fucking problem -- they own the White House, the military command structure, the Congress, a good chunk of the courts, and are getting close to a lockup on the Supreme Court, in one way or another. Also, they have control of one hundred thousand nuclear devices. Think about that.
see sig. nuff said. thanks dawkins.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Personally, I don't claim to have evidence either way and thus don't nothing. You are thinking of strong/hard/positive atheism, which I have a problem with as well. Part of the problem is that language changes, and at various times 'atheism' has meant both 'lack of belief' and 'denial of'. It's fairly political, and some folks take it really seriously. I go for the former definition.
I'm pretty sure that the "God" most religious folks believe in isn't real... there's too much evidence that the current creation myths are derived from much older, tribal traditions.
I would suggest that denying a supreme being is untenable, but so is affirming one. Thus, I don't go for either.
Of course, I'm just a smart ape on a remote planet, I could be wrong.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
it is not necessary to have infinite knowledge to know god does not exist. It is enough not to be personally attached to the idea of his existence to realize it is far less likely than the existence of real pigs (the animals, not humans you would call pigs for whatever reason) reciting Shakespeare while flying an f16 today.
Yeah, well. I haven't examined every single pig, so I might be wrong.
I'm curious, why is he anti-creationist rather than pro-evolutionist?
Because the rejection of one does not imply the acceptance of the other. I find it hard to believe that _anyone_ who has done any serious study of world religions would find any of them any more than an amalgamation of the mythologies that preceded them, but that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on someone's opinion about evolution. So, he's anti-intelligent-design. That doesn't mean he's anti-religion, anti-creation or pro-evolution. All three of these terms mean different things, none of which really have much to do with each other.
Take a step back to Roman and Medieval times. Think about how much of a role God played in society back then, and how powerful the church was.
I have to say, we've come a LONG way since then. Science has continuously stuggled against religion, but as it keeps progressing, we're gaining the upper edge slowly but surely. These types of changes do not happen overnight. And while some of us may be skeptical of the current state of affairs, I am confident that in the end Intelligent Design will be weeded out as the myth it is. Just don't expect that it will necessarily happen in the next decade.
I mean, we will inevitably reach a point technologically where we cannot progress further unless we stop believing in God once we start getting into technology that gives us the power of God. Think creating new forms of life. You think we've seen some major religious arguments now? Wait till we prove evolution by creating brand new forms of hitherto unimagined life forms and prove evolution through them. We can do it now with fruit flies to see evolution in action, but of course those are created by the Intelligent Designer. No, in order to really shake them up it would have to be something man made.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Well... If it isn't LoneStar and his sidekick Puke!
Please don't forget FSM'ism.
http://www.venganza.org/
We want our equal time, too.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The guy you're replying to is a troll, but I wanted to comment on this:
It is enough not to be personally attached to the idea of his existence to realize it is far less likely than the existence of real pigs... flying f16s and whatnot...
The second you move from seeing this as your opinion as to what is more likely, to where you see this as a proven fact, is the second atheism becomes your religion, and you become as bad as religious people. Just keep that in mind.
In Kansas, Christians are the overwhelming majority. "Whites" would be a more appropriate substitution, in which case the "small group of hateful idiots" would be the KKK circa mid-1900's. The professor would, of course, be a black man who publicly insulted them and was beaten for it. Your point about allowing their actions to reflect on the majority still stands.
It's telling that you chose the opposite analogy, though. I have a theory that Christians like to see themselves as a persecuted minority, especially when they're in the majority and doing the persecuting.
If the Pope resigns from his job, would it be wise for him to tell his boss to sod off?
he could have been more tactful in his choice of words. Also since he was assaulted for his expression I have a question. What happened to 'love your neighbor as your self' and 'turn the other cheek'? Sounds like the two that went after him are no better then the crazy people claiming to do things in the name of Islam over in the middle east.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
I'm a militant agnostic. I'll be round tomorrow evening to burn a big question mark in your lawn. (This joke stolen from Billy Connolly)
Rule #1:
Never argue with people that have imaginary friends.
"Lesson: Unless you're willing to become a martyr, never tell an angry mob they're WRONG."
Is it that, or is it "Never insult the angry mob?"
I find it hard to believe that the Chair of Religious Studies at KU would go out of his way to offend a large number of religious people of any persuasion. Had he pulled a similar stunt to offend or embarrass Muslim's, Jew's, Native American's, or any other groups religious beliefs he would have been forced to resign. There is no reason why Christians should not expect equal treatment from the Department of Religious Studies. On a broader level, why do we even allow KU to teach Religious Studies? Isn't this getting pretty close to the State of Kansas endorsing or promoting religion? I'm not really comfortable with tax dollars being spent for this. Anyone else share my concerns?
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 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
Oh look, ID suddenly explains a bunch of nonsense. I'd love to know how exactly ID explains any of these things.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As a volunteer minister and a (hopfully) reasonable person, let me say here that I would be embarassed to identify myself as a Creationist, even though I beleive that God created the universe.
I beleive that the Bible is a book of logic, of reason. I beleive that faith based on emotion is very, very weak.
I don't beleive that the entire universe, including all life on Earth sprung from nothingness. But I also do not beleive that God created the universe and all life in 6, 24-hour days. From my studies of the Bible I have realized that it is not a science textbook, but when it touches on matters of science, it is accurate. For example, the Bible describes the Earth as 'hanging upon nothing' during a time when many felt the Earth was balanced on the back of 4 elephants of some crap like that. The Bible speaks of 'the circle of the Earth' during a time when most felt the Earth was flat.
I think that a balanced, reasonable mind in required to truly come to know the God of the Bible.Do we know that he was beaten because of his views? I guess he does claim that they mentioned his course, but he could've gotten into a fight just because he was a prick from the sound of things.
I know I'm not in the habit of sending around emails where I, in effect, tell those assholes where to shove it.
I an wondering how many of the highly educated and well read atheists who troll /. have actually bothered reading any ID material. From the comments I read, it seems, not many.
Here is a link to a DVD/video that you can watch online by an agnostic (Dr. David Berlinski) who tears apart the religion of Darwinism. Perhaps a small amount of time invested in watching it would help the atheist bigotry so rampant in these comments, and inject a little reality in to the equation.
Here is the link: http://www.theapologiaproject.org/video_library.ht m
It is the fourth movie down from the top.
Karma? Sorry, i don't believe in superstition. http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz
Not since Kansas voted to accept Intelligent Design in their lyrics
Maybe when they start teaching people at church to blaim things on "satanists" and "militant atheists" (and often Catholics), they should teach the everything-I-hear-at-church-is-right type Christians how to actually behave at least somewhat like Jesus? Atheists don't blow up planes, burn witches, or kill people because they don't like their religion (unless they're mentally unstable, but most of those people seem to find religion). There are no evil atheists secret organizations or bands of satanists going about stealing your children and sacrificing your pets. Churches tend to be burned more often by rival religious groups than any other reason and though this isn't the only cause of course, people don't burn churches because they're like "Hmm, religious people are EVIL! I'm gonna go burn down churches to stick it to them!". Mindlessly calling people evil is something primarily stuck in the realm of theism. The reason religion has been attacked so much recently (and by attacked I mean verbally criticized, not violently like the responses by the religious sometimes are) is because so many religious people cause so much violence, and stupidity. Most "militant atheists" don't care if you wanna believe in some invisible skydude, but when you wanna make them follow this invisible skydude's laws, and especially when you ignore all the rules about love and peace and focus on the hateful ones, you can expect people to get pissed. Seperation of Church and State, you keep your religion out of our legal system and we won't have reason to criticize you.
I really don't know what the facts are in the alleged beating but if in fact the professor is fabricating the story, it wouldn't be the first time in recent history that a prof has gone over the edge to "make their case". Here's a link to some information about visiting professor Kerri Dunn of Claremont McKenna College.
http://www.nbc4.tv/wednesdayarchive/3998600/detail .html
As a point of clarification that article kind of makes it sound as if she was a former prof at the college when the incidents where to have taken place. She was in fact on the faculty at the time of the incident.
Last time a state tried to secede from the union, the rest of the US went to war with them and beat them into submission.
Reminds me of a bumper sticker that I've seen... http://6news.ljworld.com/art/apps/pennynews/110916 2592_bigoted.jpg
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
-Benjamin Disraeli
I, for one, welcome our new Literal-Bible-Reading overlords.
With scientific explanations out of the way, I can think of a bunch of ways to make a pile of cash:
- Blood Letting - "It worked in the 1700s and now it cures Bird Flu"
- Computer Security Pixie Dust - "Got popups and malware? Then have I got a magic sand bag for you"
- Magic Box DRM - "Now through this amazing process your record company too can protect its products from unauthorized consumer replication. Simply place products in the box for 30 minutes prior to shipment, add sheep's blood, and rest assured that your copyrighted content is safe (sheep's blood NOT included)"
- The list goes on and on...
If you've ever lived in the "bible belt" of America you know how bad people can get some times. Especially when it comes to southern Baptists.
The hilarity comes from watching them turning red in the face when you hit them up with logic and science. Try discussing the concept of free will vs it being the "right" thing to do by worshiping a god (kinda of a double standard to be forced to believe in something when you've been given free will to do as you please). Man some of these religious people down here will get so angry if you weren't in a public place you'd probably get beaten to an inch of your life or in some cases killed. (deadly serious here)
I call'em religious zealots cause they are. While I keep an open mind and let people do as they want in their own homes and churches, I cannot stand a bible thumper trying to impose their beliefs on me.
Aw Frell this
Google: A Patriot's Letter
He should'a started teaching Science in his religion class. Inappropriate, you say? He's not qualified, you say? Exactly the point.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
ID the Future
Evolution News
As well as: The Center for Science and Culture
The great thing about vitalism is that its completely unprovable! It's just a "feeling". How convenient!
For those who do not know KU and Lawrence, Kansas, it might help in reading the stories to know that: 1) there are a ton of places to eat, but nothing in the area he claims he was going to get breakfast, 2) KU is widely derided as "Gay U", 3) there is a notorious local "cruising" area for males in the area he claims he was beaten, and 4) coming out of the closet in Lawrence, Kansas means admitting publicly your a christian. The town and University are seems split on whether the beating was faked.
Anyone who blatantly goes up against that giant collection of psychopathic morons that call themselves the "Religious Right" just needs some sense beat into them.
These people are DANGEROUS! These are the Nazis, they are the Spanish Inquisition.
Tread lightly and post anonymously.
Intelligent Design may not be provable, but vitalism is, or at least as provable as materialism is.
:)
You know nothing about Vitalism. Try picking up Ingo Swann's Psychic Sexuality.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
thanks, i read descartes, i realize that the experience of the physical world is not provable, and that there may be "forces" or "energy" may exist, but there is a vital difference- we can measure and evaluate the physical world, which makes it closer to provability, as opposed to vitalism, which is about as provable as invisible pink spirit unicorns.
Nonsense, eh? Tell that to the 12-year old mozart: "you're really just some stupid know-it-all-kid". Go find someone who's had an actual Near Death Experience: "you were just hallucinating".
I didn't say Intelligent Design explains anything, just that ID is a subset of Vitalism-based philosophy, just as Evolution is a subset of Materialism-based philosophy.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
"Personally, I think the intelligence design debate will peter out as people realization that Intelligent Design is not only bad science. It is bad religion."
:)
what you don't realize is that the only good religion is Bad Religion.
[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS
I think that one's a cousin to "Don't throw shit at an armed man". Unless you're willing to become a martyr, of course...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Fortunately it appears as though KU will probably wait until the furor over Mirecki dies down and find somebody else to teach the class.
It looks as though a KU anthropology professor is planning a similar course, titled Archaeological Myths and Realities, which will discuss ID, crop circles, ESP, and how to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. And I've read that other universities around Kansas are teaching ID as religious studies or philosophy.
One of Mirecki's conservative critics also has a habit of saying inflammatory things, not that it makes what Mirecki said anymore right.
This is not so much Christian bashing as conservative bashing. Go to Kansas. There may be a synagogue or two, maybe a mosque somewhere. In order for someone to be not Christian and in Kansas, they would have to be a little progressive. At whom do you point the finger when ultra-conservative jerks beat up a progressive professor in Kansas? Christians, mostly.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
The perceived anonymity of e-mail strikes again. People, think of it as a paper letter that can be stored for days, weeks, months, years, even centuries and make you look bad even when you are gone and rotten.
Sure the world is full of evidence or "hammer marks," but to my eyes they look a lot more like fingerprints! Read about presuppositions here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/cr eation.asp
haha, so the only things that are real are the things that can be measured with currently-existing physical instruments.
:)
:)
That's a good one. Thanks.
P.S. For everyone else: I went to Mr. Swann's website myself, and found a recent update! (1st in 3 years? It's on the opening of the telepathic capability among us humans. Mr. Swann always refused the 'psychic' label, saying that he only worked with scientists. Telepathy is something that can be measured and evaluated, HexRei, just not with a physical doo-hickey.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Usually the creation (intelligent design) side of the debate is beat down by the religiously pro-evolution bias in the media and elsewhere. Talk about blind faith. Proclaiming to be the only "scientific" viewpoint, they push an unviable and anti-scientific theory as the only option. (ex. a random explosion causing order, or species evolving into other species, etc.) Now here is a guy who is working in an institution that is actually taking a stand to teach the obvious science of intelligent design, and yet he chooses to begin teaching the regular propoganda. Whats up with that? It is sad though that some goofballs would beat him up. They were acting like apes lol!
That's great that there's an underlying philosophy. Doesn't make it science, though, so there's no reason to give it equal time in a science class.
Yes, science is profoundly materialistic. That's what science is. Accept it or don't, but corrupting it does everyone who's benefitted from scientific fields like medicine, physics, chemistry, etc... well, it does all of us a disservice.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Enough with the Christian bashing. Nothing in the article stated that the men that beat this professor were Christian. (snip)
Why is it that every ethnocentric/religious/sexually-oriented/whatever else group in the world these days is treated with respect except Christians? We're easy targets, sure, and it's not unexpected. After all, 6000 of us were covered in pitch and set on fire to light Roman streets in one fell swoop under Emperor Nero. Why should we expect any different treatment now?
I'm sorry. Did you just compare being covered in pitch and lit on fire with hearing a joke about the type of Christians who would beat a guy up on the road due to a disagreement?
Don't get me wrong. I'm from Massachusetts. I'm Catholic. My senior year religion teacher (a Brother... religious type guy) had to resign after the first class and leave because he failed to register as a sex offender. I learned about it while in Washington D.C. from a national news paper. I have actual pictures of me in first grade with Cardinal Bernard Law. Hell, I was an altar boy in a church that was under his purview.
I've heard all sort of pedophilia jokes involving altar boys that make me groan and wince and be down-right disgusted with the tone. I'm not a martyr. I'm not going to invoke their sacrifice to make myself look better or try to shame the other person into silence. They deserve more respect than that.
Why is it that every ethnocentric/religious/sexually-oriented/whatever else group in the world these days is treated with respect except Christians? We're easy targets, sure, and it's not unexpected. After all, 6000 of us were covered in pitch and set on fire to light Roman streets in one fell swoop under Emperor Nero. Why should we expect any different treatment now?
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.
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.
toto: woof woof bark bark :((
dorothy: what's happening !?
fundamentalist: we're teaching the sinful epicurean a divine lesson
dorothy: toto, i think we're still in kansas dorothy: oh the horror, i cant handle this horrendous sight, where's my barbituates to dull the pain
The FOOL sayeth, "There is no God."
Someone else was beaten or killed in the name of religion! *gasp*
What's the total up to now? A few billion?
Being that religion has been the social glue to bind humanity's tribal attitudes together for, oh only ten of thousands of years against the last two-three centuries of secularlist thought, methinks you give religion too much of a bad rap.
Atheist viewpoints are not inherently better. Look how many people have been killed in a few years by fascists in worship of the state and racial purity or communists in the rise of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie or in economic "growth" initiatives.
People are people and will attempt to hurt people who are different from them regardless of what supposed values make their kind of people better. Religion gets a bad rap because it's been the most abused concept in history, but making religion go away won't fix that human tendency either. It is not religion's sole provence (to paraphrase Voltaire) to make one believe in absurdities and then commit atrocities.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
(sigh). Vitalism is NOT anti-science. ID, perhaps, but NOT vitalism.
A rigid Materialism-based outlook is anti-science. "We believe the nature of everything is hard atomic stuff" - then materialist scientists go out to prove their belief.
Beliefs are at the very core of the human experience. It's fundamentally impossible to separate the observed and the observer. Our experience of the physical world is filtered through our beliefs about the way things should be.
That is all for now. Thanks for your feedback - I'm expanding my GP post into something larger, eventually...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
There are all kinds of creationists, many of whom have graduated from high school, and even more of whom think assault is a poor debating technique. For instance, some folks, without denying the existence of a deity, believe he/she/it acted to create the big bang and pretty much left things alone after that. You probably recognize those folks as deists. But since they hypothesize a point in spacetime where/when the universe didn't exist, they're creationists too.
Just like fundamentalist and charismatic evangelical Protestant Christians have grabbed the name "Christian" for themselves (and in the process, claiming by implication that the largest Christian denomination on the planet isn't Christian), so recent creationists, who believe the earth was created somewhere in the neighborhood of 4004 BCE, have tried to grab the name "creationist" all for their very own little selfish selves.
Using "creationist" to describe recent creationists (a) keeps silent about the existence of alternatives to recent creationism at a time when people might be ready to move on to intellectually richer beliefs, and (b) fails to emphasize just how fringy recent creationsts are. Most folks believe "God created the world". But only a minority (even of Christians) believe Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs.
Let's call them what they are: recent creationists.
Exactly.
Perhaps the Slashdot community has a warped view of Christian fundamentals.
Fundamental Christianity according to Wikipedia, is "a movement...by conservative evangelical Christians, who...actively affirmed a "fundamental" set of Christian beliefs: the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the authenticity of his miracles."
I don't see anything about hatred towards non-Christians, do you? In fact, one of the teachings of Jesus states that we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).
All I'm trying to say is, fundamental Christianity is misrepresented. I adhere to fundamental Christianity (or try to, at least), and I would never think of bombing abortion clinics or beating up university professors, and neither would most fundamental Christians. It's the "Christians" who hold to teachings either not found in the Bible, or teachings distorted by men and their sloppy interpretation of the Bible who are committing these heinous crimes.
Telepathy is something that can be measured and evaluated, HexRei, just not with a physical doo-hickey.
Actually, I take that back... Mr. Swann's article talks about Mirror Neurons being involved in Telepathy, and you can measure mirror neurons with a "physical doo-hickey".
But the real question is, will your beliefs allow you to accept the possibility that mind-to-mind communication is taking place, or will you say "gotta be some other explanation..."?
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Basic problem is that intelligent design IS NOT a science and shouldn't be taught as such.
What intelligent design is, is a philosophy, just like what many of the sciences of today started out to be before experimental proof of facts moved them into a science.
I'm not saying intelligent design shouldn't be taught in schools, just not as a science. Teach it to high schools if they provide a philosophy course. Just teach it in the academic area it belongs. If it is to be taught as science then just show the proof. Let's hear about the experiments that provide the proofs and facts. Can't prove it in any way? Then its not a science.
The caption under his picture reads:
Paul Mirecki resigned as chairman of the religious studies department. He still teaches at the university.
So he resigned as chairman of religious studies, and he cancelled the course, but he still teaches at the University. I'm certainly not condoning the physical assault, and I'm not even religious, but I have to say this guy used pretty poor judgement for a chairman of a religious studies department. If a professor of East Asian studies referred to Buddhist monks as a bunch of chanting idiots running around in bath robes, that wouldn't be tolerated, and his statements shouldn't either.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
...was that "This briskit is good enough for Jehovah". Oh shit, now I said it mysel-
Man, the world has got really strange with this new fundimentalizm world-wide.
With the terrorists in the middle-east and Bush & co., we are really entering a new dark age where science is taking a back seat to politics and religion.
Its funny that here in the 21st century with the exponential growth of computer tech and biotech/nanotech, that we have to cow-tow to people who believe some superstions (religions), especially where stem cell research is concerned. With our medical systems straining at the breaking point as far as financing, the stem cell technologies and future nano technologies will give us the ability to cure any medical problem you will get, and, to top it off, you won't age at all (stop/reverse aging). But what are we doing, but still stuck in the morass that religion(s) have a big problem with the progress of science (how pathetic).
All this time I wondered if I'd see anything about the University of Kansas on slashdot. Maybe some cool engineering project they've done or something, but we get this.
Christmas will now be known as "Crystal Night"
Some people seem to think this is about science,
it is not. This is religious studies and thus
about myth. Creation myths are among the most
powerful and it is important to study them as
myth.
ID and creationism obviously can not be confronted
by science since they reject science even if they
try to deny this. But, they can and should be
confronted as very bad theology which denegrates
both God and His creation by trying to put both
in a nice safe box.
This is the achilles heel (another myth) of ID
and the violence involved here is an indication
that the ID croud is very fearful of just such
an exposure of their weakness.
The CE theory of Intelligent Design can be summed up simply- Given the existence of intelligent life in the universe, which has the ability to make choices about it's own reproduction, the universe must inevitably be considered to be an "Intelligent Design"
This is completely absurd and you give absolutely no evidence to support it; nor do you even put forth a method for testing it. You are basically saying that because we are intelligent there is enevitably intelligent design going on.
No shit.
There are all kinds of intelligent design going on right now. In fact, I am intelligently, or not so intelligently depending on you opinion, designing this post. Likewise, just because we have been able to domesticate animal, by altering selection(i.e. speeding up evolution) does not mean that it is a foregone conclution that there is intelligent design.
I would challenge anyone who believes in ID to show me any experiments or predictions based on this so called theory.
A blog about stuff.
"Well, if we destroy Kansas, the world may not hear of it for years."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
When the POPE of all people says ''intelligent'' design
and Fun-dua-mental-ism are Really Bad Ideas,
you can bet he is not speaking out against G-D Almighty.
So now,
I guess people in Kansas don't need any more Flu shots or Antibiotics,
since Evolution is just a theory,
'false teachings' regarding medicine and immune systems are worthless to truly intelligent believers.
Sinners repent, and ye colds will vanish!
"A Professor of religion at University of Kansas has resigned from his position at the university because of his anti-creationism views"
Um, no...he just resigned as chair. He is still a professor at the university, though probably not for long if the "beating" turns out to be a hoax as seems increasingly likely.
This is especially common in Muslim countries, but the violent attack from the Kansas yahoos shows that the same thing is not just possible but happens here. The parallels with the various "Committees for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" are obvious.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I have a degree in religious studies, and the discussion always came up as to whether a scientific outlook was religious or not. There were a few extremists on both sides -- atheists that thought scientific and religious outlooks were opposites, and then extreme cultural relativists that thought that science was just another outlook like other religions and world-views.
;)
People in the middle had a serious, open-minded discussion. Of course, we never figured out the 'answer'. I always flipped-flopped on the arguments. Especially interesting were things like Plato's 'world of forms' and Pythagoras' number cult. Hindu philosophy also interesting -- according to one of my professors, all logical models of the universe that scientific astronomers have discussed ( eternal, circular, beginning-but-no-end, no-beginning-but-end, big-bang, big-bust, bang-bust-cycles, multiverse (!) ) were covered thousands of years ago by Hindu philosophers. They also grappled with internal states and senses, which western science has meticulously avoided. Their stuff on consciousness blows my mind
The question I always grapple with is 'why should we trust logic'? I think there is something hard-wired in human minds that depends on logic for at least everyday life, and the scientific outlook says that logic, and only logic, is good enough for for the Big Questions.
This riddle always irked me: If God is omnipotent, can he make a rock so big that he can move it? I thought it was obvious that an omnipotent God should not necessarily be bound by logic. I think a Hindu philosopher would answer that God can both move and not move the rock, but can't not move nor not-not move the rock, and both can and can't move and not move...
But this professor is not making an attempt at serious open-minded dialogue. His title sounds remarkably like a 'debunking' class. He's just being a giant obviously-biased douchbag.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I would have thought that was what you'd call agnostic, not atheist. Or maybe agnostic just means you don't really choose a belief either way?
You condemn the people who beat up the professor, but you know the only reason you slashdotters don't punch people who bad mouthed your entrenched linux beliefs is because you'd bust all your scrawny 75 wpm fingers on the first punch.
Allow me to quote Dr. Mirecki verbaitum: "I don't think most Catholics really know what they are supposed to believe, they just go home and use condoms and some of them beat their wives and husbands." (Found at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1531697/p osts)
Could the problem perhaps be less a matter of him loudly disagreeing with the teaching of pseudoscience than a matter of him just being loudly disagreeable? If he had made a similar statement about people of Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist faith I doubt he would have many defenders. Let's recognize this for the straw-man it is.
Insightful article
if it is scientifically testable, then sure, I'd accept the possibility, and if the tests proved that this was taking place, I'd adopt the belief.
I'm not sure how this relates to "Vitalism", which has nothing to do with Mirror Neurons and is untestable.
I am far from kansas.
How did your state fare? Read the Fordham Foundation's full report here.
...when a Zonk story summary has any relation to any sort of measurable reality.
In my oppinion, anyone who starts to become aggressive (that includes verbal aggression) has already lost and/or has a serious stress problem. Most of those cases should be put away to recieve psychiatric treatment until the disorder can either be controlled or is healed.
There are ofcourse cases which are simply too dumb and/or refuse to learn. These persons should be kept behind bars and recieve constant treatment for their disorder. They should also be explained thoroughly why they are put behind bars (that should lower the difficulty of handling and lower the escape risk).
If you ever encounter somebody who seems to have a thick skull, but otherwise seems nice (these people really exist) get rid of that person, s/he is quite capable of aggression and will (sooner or later) let you enjoy some of it (be it verbal (shouting, intimidation), physical (beating you up, sexual harassment) or social (isolating you)).
Interesting comments. I too tend to believe that there's more to life than simple biomechanics, but IMO the fuss isn't about Evolution vs Intelligent Design or Science vs Religion.
Many (and I'd hope most) of the scientists, teachers and professors who object to including Intelligent Design in science classes aren't objecting because they think Evolution is 100% correct, or because they think Intelligent Design is wrong. They object because Intelligent Design isn't science, by definition of the term "science".
There are two purposes to any science class, in my opinion: one is to teach students what are currently believed to be the most accurate scientific theories, but the other (and perhaps more important) purpose is to teach the scientific method: the method by which those theories are developed.
The main components of the scientific method are observation and experimentation. That is, you observe something, formulate a hypothesis, develop experiments that you can run to test the hypothesis, run the experiment and then see how well your hypothesis holds up. Typically, you'd find that something wasn't exactly the way you thought it would be, so you'd tweak your hypothesis, develop new experiments, and repeat the process ad infinitum. Through this process, you'd inch closer and closer to "the truth".
With Intelligent Design, however, there aren't any experiments that you can run to reliably test the hypothesis. If God is omnipotent, God can alter the outcome of any experiment. Thus, you can never prove or disprove the theory (which, is the whole point of Faith, as I understand it). While that doesn't mean Intelligent Design is wrong, it means it doesn't fit the definition of Science.
Now, many people (including Senator John McCain) wonder why teachers and scientists are so opposed to including Intelligent Design in the curriculum. The problem is that doing so would be an inherent contradition and, as a result, teachers would not be teaching the scientific method, which is the whole point of the class. It would be like teaching that beef is a vegetable in a botany class.
That's not to say that the current scientific theories are all correct. In fact, we know that they're not. One hope of teaching science is to develop the next generation of scientists who can test and refine or change the current theories (or develop new ones) and bring us closer to "the truth". If we teach students that it's acceptible to ignore the results of scientific method in favor of theories that are untestable, then we are crippling our own progress and will slip further and further behind Germany and Japan (for example) in fields like Engineering. Would you want to fly in an airplane whose design was based on theories that are not testable and which contradict what we believe to be the laws of physics? Or, more succinctly, would you fly in an airplane whose design was based on faith?
This is not to say that we should never discuss Intelligent Design at all. I've heard many scientists say that it is a valid topic, just not for a science class (or, at least, not a high-school level science class, in my opinion).
Interestingly, many scientists feel the same way about String Theory as well (which is why this isn't about Science vs Religion). String theory is an attempt to rectify some of the inconsistencies between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The problem is that there's no observable tests for String Theory. So, while it might be true, there's no way we could test it to find out.
At one point (and it may still be the case) there were five versions of string theory, all of which seemed equally valid. But some of those theories contradicted the others. Since none of them could be tested, how would you know which one is correct? Similarly
This applies to the Left, the Right, whatever. The problem in this world isn't too many extremists of a particular type, it that there too many extremists. Period. It's like everyone and his auntie these days is a mantra chanthing mouthpiece for the poison^H^H^H^H^H^H Party of their choice. It's really fucking depressing, and I wish things had gone differently over the past few decades so that we had offworld colonies by now, because I'd be outta here.
I admire the guy... willing to stand up for what he believes in, regardless of the cost.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sounds like the dilemma Ann Coulter just experienced (and experiences).
The real issue with the course was academic integrity. See, in the academic study of religion and mythology, you aren't supposed to look at the "validity" of the belief, per se. You're supposed to separate your private beliefs from your subject matter so you can engage in intellectually honest study. Usually, the biggest problem in the context of religious studies is the students have a very difficult time setting aside their beliefs and studying things like the Bible as historical texts. Here, the problem was the professor made statements that proved he had no objectivity about ID and Creationism.
In a nutshell, teaching a course that critically evaluates ID and Creationism in a mythological context, by examining their historical antecedents, evidence, portrayal in the media and so forth and that compares and contrasts them with alternative viewpoints is fine. Indoctrinating students and trying to discredit (as opposed to describe and understand) a belief system to "get in the fundie's face" is completely inappropriate. The role of a professor in religious studies is not to push students toward a specific belief or dogma (if you want that, attend seminary), but rather to develop their critical thinking/reading abilities so they are capable of forming their own opinions, backed by evidence, as academic integrity demands.
In short, I'm glad the professor cancelled the course, and I'm glad he's stepped down as department chair. On the otherhand, the cockrammers who beat him up are probably your typical anti-intellectual townies. It's a damned shame that academic institutions are looked down on so much in America these days.
I'm a Protestant, and I don't start with Biblical inerrancy or something like that. In fact, I find those ways of reading the Bible rather dubious. Rather, I have been profoundly affected by the figure of Jesus; who is he? What was he about? What would he have to say to people like me? The answers to those questions, and to others about the meaning of life and death and about lived beliefs, brought me to Christianity.
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.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Honestly, I didn't make the connection to Fundamentalist Christian at first. but through the magic of Google, however, I managed to stumble across this hilarious dictionary and thought I would share;
http://members.aol.com/porchnus/dict01.htm
Enjoy!
Oh, wait..
Do not vote for a politician who claims special communication with higher beings.
Could you clarify that statement? I'm just curious. I can't speak for agnostics - which does strike me as a sort of intellectual fence-sitting - but I am an atheist myself, so I can speak to that.
Here is what I found curious about your experience with atheists. I find it continually bizarre that I need this word at all, to define myself by something I am not. But people find it handy. I enjoy discussing religion and ever so often I do find theists seem exasperated, like I'm being obtuse - much like your reaction ("no more open minded than the dogmatic religious ones"). Now, I would describe myself as quite convinced of my point of view, given that I've spent a lot of time examining and thinking about the idea of God. I would also describe myself as absolutely open to any kind of sign or evidence presented at all (beyond seeing Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, etc).
So in other words, I am absolutely dogmatic about it, in the classic dictionary-definition sense, in that I hold it to be axiomatic that no on has ever proven the existence of God. Your convictions should be proportional to your evidence, that's my whole point of view; is that really so closed-minded?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
it's a sport, try it, I like saying things like
"Jesus Christ you cock sucking son of a syphilitic whore"
the look of astonished horror on a Christians face is magic.
There's some controversy about the allegation.
The police originally classified it as a hate crime, then the press reported that it was downgraded it to aggrivated battery. The police report filed has surprisingly little information in it. The University Daily Kansas is reporting a clarification by the police that they aren't even classifying it as aggrivated battery.
Naturally, Dr. Mirecki is refusing to discuss it further.
There were no witnesses. The pickup truck was aggressively tailing him, so he stops, and when they get out (one with a metal pipe or such object), he gets out. In the middle of nowhere.
Not to make light of the tragedy if it acutally happened, but there's something not kosher about this tale....
How this got modded insightful, I have no clue. There is nothing in the Gospels to actually support your assertion. There are many accounts in the Gospels of Jesus hiding from his enemies in a supernatural way when presented with threats to his life. I believe two things about Christ's crucifixion. The first is that Christ died to absolve Christians of their sins so that they can reach Heaven. The other is that Christ chose the timing and circumstances of his death in order to fulfill biblical prophecies about the Messiah. This is why I believe that Christ was not a complete pacifist.
Karma: Positive. Mostly effected by cowbell.
I'm not sure how this relates to "Vitalism", which has nothing to do with Mirror Neurons and is untestable.
:)
I think of it this way: Mirror Neurons and the other structures Mr. Swann talks about in this paper are analogous to "radio receivers", whereby thoughts/feelings/images/smells/etc are 'transmitted' or 'shared' in some form or fashion between two bodies. Furthermore, this transmission and reception is not limited to isolated structures of the brain, but is instead a fundamental part of our makeup/existence. A different way of looking at the brain is not as the "human CPU", but more like a radio set, which channels a specific non-material "entity" into a specific human body.
Materialism is the doctrine that matter is first cause, and everything else is a byproduct thereof. Vitalism is the philosophy that Conciousness is primary, and everything else derives therefrom. It's like in the Matrix (which was based on Buddhist philosophy) - there's the "real world" (conciousness), and the illusory Matrix (our shared physical experience).
Of course, I'm just figuring this out for myself, so I reserve the right to revise whatever I've said here in the future.
You might be intererested in Robert Monroe's three books (I recommend starting with the first one - the library probably has a copy). Robert was an engineer and businessman who discovered quite accidentally that his materialistic overview was incomplete.
Intelligent Design is anti-science, a doctrine whose proponents throw up their hands, "god must've done it". It is designed to fit into a pre-existing, rigid dogma. Vitalism is just a different 'lense' to examine the universe through, to apply the scientific method with.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
2. Dogmatic Athiests pushing their belief system as the anti-religion.
3. The Rest Of Us.
Alright, I am about to trample this argument, and I apologize for this in advance, for it will sound harsher than I likely mean it to.
This whole "everybody sucks" argument has to be one of the most intellectually lazy things you can put out there. It comes up in every big hot-button slashdot discussion. And it is so easy to play the wizened cynic, I've-seen-it-all, and have everybody nod along with you but it adds nothing to the conversation that is worthwhile.
"Christians suck!" - "Atheists suck!" - "They ALL suck, am I right fellas?"
"Democrats suck!" - "Republicans suck!" - "They ALL suck, right fellas?"
"Sony sucks!" - "Microsoft sucks!" - "They ALL suck, isn't it true fellas?"
It reminds me of this bullshit he-said-she-said format the cable news channels like to promote and it seems to have somehow seeped into the public consciousness. Sometimes, someone really IS right and someone really is wrong. Sometimes a point of view can be dismissed as nonsense out-of-hand. Really. Its true.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004037.htm He stopped and got out of his car at 6:30 in the morning on a deserted rural road? For all you students, its DARK at 6:30. You'd have to be drunk, dumb or deranges to get out of your car to confront someone who'se been following you like that.
Sad to see you modded as a troll. Then again I'm obviously biased both because I subscribe to the view of point number 3 as well as wishing that Slashdot would attract lots of people who feel the same way (because those people tend to be scientists or enlightened in some way imho).
:)
I guess they're rare because they've got better things to do than hang around on the internet
I'd like to see a rational discourse specifically on Behe's examples but if there is any it's drowned in all the political grandstanding going on (can't say I'm much impressed with what I've seen by "scientists" purposesly "debunking" them so far).
Anyone have a link with detailed scientific step-by-step explanation (hopefully without offtopic rhetoric) on how the theory of evolution supposedly explains the driveshaft and rotating motor "construction" of a bacterias flagellum? I'd love to read it so I can learn more about their point of view, please share it.
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
There is something weird about this story.
Then again, Kansas is the state that originated Jayhawkers.
I am glad this debate is here because it is huge.
There are basically two main sides both looking at the same evidence and both examining that evidence through their own colored glasses.
Evolution has become more than just a theory, it is a religious belief of its own. The only difference is the secular humanist society wants no other views to be allowed and will use whatever means to shut opposing views down. Thus Intelligent design which is supported by more and more scientists is being locked out of public view.
Science is observations and tests to hypothesize the why's and how's of the world around us. Creation does not stop this process it simply starts with an understanding that intelligence started it all. Evolution says that nothing started it all. The problem is that if there was a creator as the Bible and other religious books and faiths suggest, then evolution as is almost soley taught in our secular society is wrong from the get go, and the evidence will show it.
Creation or intelligent design seems to line up much more than evolution does with real science. For example, you will never see an explosion create an ordered system however evolution starts with this theory as a basis. You will never see an animal involve into another animal as DNA shows this cannot happen. Creation postulates that an intelligent designer created the universe around us and that there is order to the universe. DNA is a genetic blueprint that is incredibly complex and was only realized long after the likes of the first evolutionists who believe that cells were no more complex than a ping pong ball and yet even ping pong balls require an intelligent designer and the tools to make it.
An evolutionist believes that the eye evolved over time through mutations even though it does not make any scientific sense nor is it observable. Can you imagine a retina existing for no reason at all with no lens just a ball forming in the socket of some creature flailing about in the sludge, then thousands or hundreds of thousands of years later, a lens forms and the creature begins to see.
What about the fossil record which shows a massive deluge of water covered the earth and literally buried millions of animals some while they were still eating. entombing and fosillizing them. But the concept of a worldwide flood is shut out of our schools because it points to a God
If you ask theoretical question like where did the Universe come from? you will get two very different views, one that says that God who is eternal pre-existed and created. The other says that sub-atomic particles existed and then exploded.
Both views must be taught it is the only scientific way. I think evolutionist are just scared that their fantasies will be made clear.
Some people like these that use their religion to promote intolerence are making Christianity look a little less appetizing. I grew up Catholic, gave my first communion, and other such rites of passage. Fundies are just one example that's making me embarrased about my beliefs.
On the issue of ID though, that fact that it's psuedoscience has already been establish, and I'm not sure you can even include "science" in that term. Last year in AP Biology, my teacher brought in a National Geographic article that reaffirmed Darwin's theories of natural selection. I think ID was mentioned once during that class but it was a subject that was quickly dropped. Of course, that was about 9 months ago, before ID became topic fodder for the New York Times, Newsweek, etc. That's when I knew we had a problem.
If the religious fanatics won't go away, then at least keep ID somewhere closer to the study of religion, not biology.
"A man got religion, and asked the priest what he must do to be worthy of his new estate. The priest said, "Imitate our Father in Heaven, learn to be like him." The man studied his Bible diligently and thoroughly and understandingly, and then with prayers for heavenly guidance instituted his imitations. He tricked his wife into falling downstairs, and she broke her back and became a paralytic for life; he betrayed his brother into the hands of a sharper, who robbed him of his all and landed him in the almshouse; he inoculated one son with hookworms, another with the sleeping sickness, another with gonorrhea; he furnished one daughter with scarlet fever and ushered her into her teens deaf, dumb, and blind for life; and after helping a rascal seduce the remaining one, he closed his doors against her and she died in a brothel cursing him. Then he reported to the priest, who said that that was no way to imitate his Father in Heaven. The convert asked wherein he had failed, but the priest changed the subject and inquired what kind of weather he was having, up his way."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I love CNN's unbiased reporting.
http://outcampaign.org/
>[T]he proponents of Intelligent Design are really just pushing for equal time.
They don't deserve equal time. A right to equal time would imply they were saying something that, in the interests of a fair and balanced discussion, was worth listening to.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Claiming to be omniscient is absurd (you can't know if your knowlage of your knowlage is complete). It is not absurd to claim that an omniscient would be absurd.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
>[T]he proponents of Intelligent Design are really just pushing for equal time.
:) coverage of what I was getting at in the GP post. This Evolution:ID :: Materialism:Vitalism analogy is something that I'm piecing together from disparate sources, hence the wording in my GP post reflects confusion before clarity emerges. (well, hopefully clarity will come by some day...)
They don't deserve equal time. A right to equal time would imply they were saying something that, in the interests of a fair and balanced discussion, was worth listening to.
Which is certainly the case. BUT those parents pushing ID also Don't deserve to have their home religious teachings purposefully undermined by a school system pushing the materialist-based philosophy of Evolution (as it is currently taught).
See my other responses in this thread for more 'evolved' (haha, pun intended
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
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With all due respect, there is no debate. There have been no articles in respectable scientific journals that support ID. If a biologist could convincingly argue agains evolution, he/she would win the nobel prize, and go down in the history books. None have.
"An evolutionist believes that the eye evolved over time through mutations even though it does not make any scientific sense nor is it observable." First of all, instead of "evolutionist" you might as well say "biologist." So yes, biologists believe they have a convincing argument for how the eye evolved in fact. If you don't believe them, fine, that is certainly your right, but don't make it out like there is a debate within the scientific community.
You also do not establish why evolution discounts a creator. I don't think it does. So even there is not even a debate in the sense that evolution says there is no creator. It simply doesn't explicity say there was a creator.
There is certainly (and has been since, well, I think Aristotle at least) an argument over philosophical materialism, or things like it. But this is a philosophy argument that only accidentally has something to do with evolution.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
There have been about 3,700 terrorist attacks since 9/11/01 perpetrated by Muslims.
I don't hate Muslims, nor do I think they are evil, but it IS an interesting statistic. I am not blind, either, to wrongs committed by Christians or atheists.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I read your post three times and I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say.
evil is as evil does
Why do you think evolution is a subset of materialism-based philosophy? I don't think it is. Scientific models don't make any assumptions about philosophical materialism.
Actually, all of the Kindergarten teachers I have met are very kind and don't insult people. They are the perfect example of politeness.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
After reading your comments for years, I actually agree with you for once. No offense. :-)
Fundamentalists have become locked in a curious epistemological circle, starting with a critique of modernism: The problem with modern man is that he is his own authority --> I'm not like that; the Bible is my authority --> The literal meaning of the Bible is the true meaning of the Bible --> The literal meaning is the plain meaning to me when I read it.
Unstated: therefore, I am the final authority.
The result is that the majority of evangelicals believe doctrines at odds with both the Church Fathers and the historic Protestant Reformers (Luther/Calvin/Zwingli). If you are interested in a scholarly case for this, I recommend Keith Mathison's "The Shape of Sola Scriptura." Here is a shorter version of the same.
Now, back to the regularly scheduled disagreement: With regard to the Rahab item above, I don't think it takes too much imagination to picture a large section of the city walls falling and another large section not falling. Or did you imagine that Jericho only had one wall, all built in a seamless piece? Perhaps a Maginot line?
Jus' yankin' your chain...
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
just wondering
Evolution as taught to the kiddies is heavily biased towards a material overview. Atoms come together in the swamp to somehow become algae, which through natural selection become plants and bacteria and animals and finally humans, the pinacle of the evolutionary process on this planet. Or maybe life's proto-structures were seeded from deep space. Little is said about the causes behind the changes seen in the fossil record, just a hint that there's certainly a good, material explanation. Certified Scientists just haven't figured out what it is quite yet.
While a pure-scientific model may be agnostic, scientists and teachers all have their biases (materialistic/vitalisitic/etc), and those biases color everything they do.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
This is something I'm still working on.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
In what way do you think these biases come in? I am genuinely curious. I don't remember my high school biology class being taught with this bias. But then, you may consider me biased towards materialism (which is fine if you think that) so I would not notice it then, I suppose.
What do you mean by "causes" behind the changes? When I think about what "cause" means, I tend to define a "cause" such that if event B necessarily follows event A, we say that event A "causes" event B. While I suppose this assumes that events must have natural causes, I don't see how this makes a statement about materialism one way or the other. Would you? I'm not a professional philosopher of course.
In this sense, I would think that quite a bit IS said about what causes the changes in the fossil record, namely Darwin's natural selection. Natural selection does assume natural causes like any scientific theory, but again I don't see how this is inherently materialistic.
" With all due respect, there is no debate. There have been no articles in respectable scientific journals that support ID" "There is no debate" are you out of your tree? of course there is debate and it is massive has been going on since the Scopes trials and before that. I imagine that the scientific journals of which you speak as being "reputable" are only the ones that have been supporting an evolutionary view. There are many journals and scientists that are purposely not published in those journals because of there "reprehensible" belief in special creation. If you really feel you've got it all together, then you may want to check out some of the opposing sites like http://www.icr.org/ or http://www.answersingenesis.org/ amongst many. You have been led to believe and lied to blatantly in some cases where evidence has already proven so called evidence wrong. Yet the school textbooks and Discovery channels still proclaim as absolute fact. If you can take a step back and just analyze what you hear and see being taught and broadcast everyday from a perspective that is open to all options, you will begin to get a sick feeling in your stomach that you have been misled.
The differences between ID and evolution are not just differences in philosophy. Most forms of ID take as a major premise the claim that biological structures are so perfect that they must have been designed by an intelligent designer. And of course those IDers who are fundamentalist Christians, certainly a large fraction though not all, think that the designer was not merely intelligent but omniscient and omnipotent, the natural consequence of which is that biological structures should all be really well designed. The premise of biological perfection is an empirical premise, so empirical that it is false. IDers have a terrible time explaining why so many biological structures are horrible kludges. Take the retina for instance. What kind of nutcase would design an eye like that?
Or in the case of his assailants, Who Would Jesus Beat?
Please don't confuse my post with advocation of Intelligent Design. All I'm saying is that the scientific theory of evolution as taught in biology class has essential, unstated philosophical underpinnings of a materialist-bent. Proponents of ID perceive the materialistic nature of ID as a threat, and have organized against it.
I'm just trying to widen the discussion a little bit here, so it becomes more than just turf warfare...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
But the point is that the scientific method is necessarily a naturalistic pursuit. You can't open it to those other possibilities without throwing the scientific method out the window. What do you propose? We could say, "Here is evolution. Or God could have done it. Or the FSM could have done it. Or unicorns could have done it. Or, it could never have happened at all." All of those statements are potentially true from a philosophical perspective, but they have nothing to do with science class.
If that's the only objection, why is evolution always targetted? Why not germ theory? Oxidation / reduction equations in chemistry? Relativity? "The evidence seems to point to ____, or God could have done it" could be said for every chapter in every science book. I think that the answer is that evolutionary theory is hard to reconcile with certain religious beliefs, so people attack it and then try to cover it up with some nonsense about simply objecting to the materialistic aspect of it.
I don't recall exactly who said it, but he/she put it very succinctly by saying, "Intelligent design is not a scientific alternative to evolution. It's a metaphysical alternative to science."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Your whole comment is bloated, You're just rambling on about violence. By taking this look exclusivly you are showing yourself to be explicitly secular (remember secular means worldly, or in the flesh), and biased. Answer me this, how can you (or any of these poor threatened heathens) justify removing GOD from our Nation under God?
Ok, that was a little optimistic. Odds are you don't understand the question so here's an easy one. How many hands would it take for you to enumerate things worse than death? Be careful with that answer, I'll flame you silly if you respond without thinking.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I'm an atheist. I'll put that out in the open. Christians do go to far. So do Muslims. So do a lot of atheists. So do most people that put belief before thought. I think that in the US the Christians percieve a war raging against their faith. Most Christians dont want to beat your brains in for it. Personally, I'm not offended by people wanting to celebrate Christmas, since the majority of the country is christian(overwhelmingly). Also, I think they percieve evolution as some direct afront to their faith. But, Christians tend to take from the bible what they want. You dont see them stoning people (to often) or screaming that the sun goes around the earth(which it says it does in the bible). What they are scared of is losing their safety net. If evolution is fact then they dont need God. A theory in science is not "just a theory." It is the best explanation for a body of evidence. It's a theory that the earth goes around the sun, proven to like 99.9999bar% accuracy, but a theory none the less. Recently I was at the North Carolina Museum of Natural History, which has the largest collection of whale skeletons on earth. When you see such massive animals, it is stunning, then to see they have hands and feet and hips, well, it's a religious experience in it's own right. Evolution has so many pieces of evidence in it's favor that it's, in my book, a fact. The ID(Creationists, because that is what they are) do not have a single shred of evidence. They attempt to punch holes in a theory, which is not how science is done. They demand intermediary species, which they can do until the cows come home, but we will never be able to give them all to them. They could do it until we had the fossil evidence of every creature that has ever lived, and still not be happy. Sorry, I'm sort of putting it all out there. I'm an atheist, I have no problem with christians. The Ten Commandments doesn't bother me, they are a large part of what steered our laws, but I would also like to see a version of the Code of Hammurabi, The Magna Carta, a few others. And, ID isn't science. It's your faith. Leave it as your faith, teach it in your home, keep it out of our Government Schools. We have seperation of Church and State and I think it should stay that way. You have home, church and private schools for your teachings. Thanks
The bias is in the overview used. Something like, "we are physical beings living on a physical planet undergoing physical-chemical interactions, with a little bit of mental processes tacked on as an afterthought". Order emerged spontaneously from chaos. This is materialist philosophy.
Vitalism maintains that there is an essential, non-material spark that enters the material world to animate non-living matter into something higher.
What do you mean by "causes" behind the changes?
See Robert Monroe's Far Journeys - there's a short passage about the creative process (NOT intelligent design) that resulted in the earth-life system as we know it today. A "Creative Process" is contrasted against Natural Selection, which is more of an "Accidental Process".
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
The general response to this article seems a little strange to me. If the statement is that ...
"The article goes on to explain that Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-_________ sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles."
In which the blank above is left variable, then it could be seen as grounds for punishment (even dismissal). Doesn't that seem to be the usual trend? I mean, if it says any of the following
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-BLACK sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-JEWISH sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-MUSLIM sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-CHINESE sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-MEXICAN sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-HINDU sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-HANDICAPPED sentiments around to people interested"
"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-ELDERLY sentiments around to people interested"
(or any number of other groups) wouldn't we expect some kind unrest over it? Why are the Christians (or whoever) treated so poorly in some of the responses to this article (as in posts with content like "Of course, the local fundies had a stooge on the email list, and used their normal right-wing media outlets to stage a bogus controversy." What's the difference between something like this and wanting to prosecute some CEO or Congressman over comments perceived to be prejudiced on an internal memo?
The content doesn't have to be *intended* to be anti-GROUPOFYOURCHOICE, it only has to be *perceived* as such -- e.g.: When an aide to the mayor of Washington D.C. was "encouraged" to resign after offense at his using the word "niggardly" in a speech because it sounds like "nigger" -- even though the words are unrelated in definition AND etymology (read: it's completely unrelated, and comes from a different language it just sounds similar -- check the Wikipedia entry if you're curious). Irritating, sure, but would anyone be willing to say, "stupid blacks!" over it? Surely not. Whoever reacted against it was just a little overly sensetive. Same with the Christians who over-reacted to some unintentional "anti-Christian" sentiments. Same with any group that does that.
Give 'em a break -- they're just people doing their best to do their best, like most everyone else.
Newtonian mechanics are a close enough approximation of the way the everyday world works.
That's more like it.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I always thought this was a stupid rule.
"It's nothing of which to be ashamed." is a SHITLOAD more awkward than "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
+++ATH0
Are all Southern Baptists (and yourself in particular) Calvinists?
I ask because Calvinism seems to me to be largely irreconcilable with rational thought (and Christian apology specifically).
+++ATH0
No, intelligent design is "shut out" of schools, not public view. And it's shut out because it hasn't produced any useful results, it has only fringe support among scientists, has essentially no meaningful evidence, and runs directly counter to the scientific method. If they can come up with some useful evidence above the false dichotomy of "evolution couldn't have done it, there for an intelligent designer did," and then come up with some tests for their ideas, they might get some recognition. Until then, they're out. In science class, we teach established scientific results and the scientific method. ID is not an established scientific result and it completely discards the scientific method.
No, evolution has nothing to say what started it all. Evolution explains the diversity of species and their similarity in structure. It provides evidence for common ancestry. That's it. Everything else is left to other disciplines.
Sure, if there is a creator who is running everything, lots of scientific theories might be wrong (depending on the nature of the creator and what he/she/it claims to be doing). That's a fine philosophy, but it doesn't belong in a science class. Let there be evidence.
You seem to be referring to the "big bang" theory. First, it has nothing to do with evolution. You're thinking of physics. It's a different area, but it also conflicts with some religious views. People who are offended by it like to conflate the two so they can paint science as being anti-God. It ain't so. Second, as the model lays it out, it looks very little like an explosion. To say it does is a terrible oversimplification that betrays a severe lack of understanding of the model. Without a deeper understanding, it's probably best to leave deciding whether it's a good model or not to the experts. This is not the sort of thing an armchair physicist can debunk with a thought experiment and no mathematics or data.
Nonsense. You're just asserting your conclusion. What about DNA shows that it cannot happen? It's DNA that provides the strongest evidence that it DID happen!
Again, that's fine metaphysically. It's a solid philosophy that you can live your life by but has no place in the science classroom until you can play by the rules and come up with some data and tests.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The Scientific Process is perfectly valid. The problem comes when groups use it to push their agenda (the above-mentioned philosophy of evolution), conciously or unconciously. There are natural explanations for everything. Incorporating a SCIENTIFIC study of 'spirit' into the process (instead of pretending that spirit doesn't exist, or is merely tacked-on to a physical subsystem) will help to fill in the black holes that currently exist in the present material overview.
"Metaphysics" is a field which has much to offer in the form of future scientific discoveries. There are all sorts of phenomena (that have been studied by scientists, but who's findings haven't been universally accepted by materialistic-biased peers) that have valid explanations that lie outside a strictly physical worldview.
From another comment:
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Answer me this, how can you (or any of these poor threatened heathens) justify removing GOD from our Nation under God?
I'll bite.
When we accepted the term "One Nation Under God", it was because we were fighting godless communists, and if godless communists say that phrase they burst into flames and are consumed by fiery death. It worked for awhile... as in, until 9/11. The phrase no longer protects us because our enemy loves God. It's the only thing they live for. It's no longer applicable in exposing our enemies, which is the only reason "One Nation Under God" was created as a pseduo-motto for America
Also, since the primitive founding fathers never uttered the phrase or forced others to, we are unsure of the effect it would have had on the British. The best they had was some pathetic pluralistic catchphrase..."E Plurbus Unum". Those simpletons won on luck alone with that motto.
Well, why won't they let me put up a sign on the courthouse lawn that says "God does not exist", or "The Bible is a fairy tale"? I pay taxes! I vote!
The problem is, you seem to think absence of blatant christianity in the public square on the public dime is antichristianity. Most people just see the absence of christianity(or any other religion) on the state grounds as a pretty simple way to keep the peace. It's off limits to keep fights from breaking out and tearing this country apart. By fighting for more and more special christian rights, you are undoing America and turning it against itself. And you don't care because you think you're making it better. The courthouse will be in flames one day, but at least it will have the ten commandments on the lawn and a crucifix in the parking lot.
I truly can't believe you just said you're offended by empty space, because that's all it is. That's all you're arguing over. Christians have a right to not be offended by lack of Chrisitan artwork and/or symbols in their surrounding spaces? Funny, that's not in the Constitution. Maybe it is to be found in the Bill of Interior Decorations?
Go ahead and run for office. I would find it refreshing to see a christian in the government. Why, I hope one day this country will elect an openly christian president! Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively.
Oh, and my anti-bot validation word for this comment was "centrist". Heh.
If it makes you feel uncomfortable to hear words that contradict your beliefs, remember that it pales in comparison to the discomforts our brave veterans suffered while they shed blood for our great nation in past wars.
Most of the founding fathers of the USA were Deists, not Christians. In other words, they believed God created the world but did not believe the Bible to accurately portray God.
Listen to the words of our founding fathers.
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
-- Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (Written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams.)
"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
-- Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823):
"My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-- Thomas Paine
"...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
-- Benjamin Franklin
Later in history...even one of the most revered US Presidents ever wrote: "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
--Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield
Please remember the sacrifices of our veterans and make an attempt to match the courage they showed in battle. Have the courage to read the history of USA and the history of the major world religions without covering your eyes when you see things that contradict what your pastor told you. There's a good reason why our founding fathers so clearly wanted a separation of church and state.
Personally, I believe in God and that the best way to understand God is by examining what God created rather than reading fairy tales like the Bible or Koran which were distributed by those who have an agenda in controlling the rabble. I don't think God's existence can be proven or disproven within my lifetime, but His works can certainly be better understood via scientific methods rather than reading propaganda written hundreds of years ago in the middle east.
Your lack of courage to consider the truth dishonors our brave veterans. Your apathy regarding our current government throwing away the separation of church and state is shameful. And your laziness towards learning our history will only keep you ignorant while radicals change America into something our founding fathers tried to prevent.
To any usefull definition of the word 'know' the existence of god is knowable. He is not there. Believing in god is in the same category as believing in any other fantastic impossibility.
And I am not trying to be 'better' than religious people. The above is my honest opinion reached after lots of thought. If this makes me 'bad' in your eyes, well, so be it. I suppose 'good' is refusing to aknowledge truth because the truth is somewhat ugly. And because it implies that most of humanity lives in a state of self-delusion that they are not even enjoying.
What the creationists are trying to hide is that all religions practice the art of Eugenics. They try to breed humans who will be sympathetic to their administration. Unfortunately, only nature can do genetics, and thus evolve species that fit their environment. What the Eugenicists end up with is devolution, which at best can only breed humans back into monkeys (Anyone we know?).
There's a really big difference between the Christian Fundamentalists and the Black Panthers that makes the analogy (Fundamentalist:Christianity::Black Panther:Civil Rights) fail -- viz. the Black Panthers were seeking to affect their ends through violent, illegal means. This is not the case for the Christian Fundamentalists (or at least the ones to which Professor Mirecki was objecting). Thus, the idea that "the situation is the same" between the idea that "very few people would oppose an e-mail deriding the Black Panthers for their militarism" and "email[s that] single out the fundamentalists in the state legislature" is incorrect.
..."
There are no valid grounds for exclusion from the legislature except: popular opinion (they can't get enough votes) and illegal activity (such as the Black Panther's violence). Objections based on "'Unscientific' beliefs" (or any other set of beleifs) is simple bigotry. However right or wrong someone's beliefs are the having of them ought not to be grounds for keeping them out of legislature.
You said that "There are moderates, mind you - an overwhelming majority of Christians (including the entire Catholic church) see little or no tension between creationism and evolution. Those in our state legislature looking to change science until it is no longer science, however, are in that looney minority who believe things like
The supremecy of "Science" is not a right garaunteed by the constitution or any other legal document. What is garaunteed is a right of the people to legislate as they see fit (via the vehicle of voting). If the people want to vote on policy based on the idea that cybernetic chihuahuas from the inner core of the sun are responsible for gravity, that is their perogative. If more level heads prevail in the voting arena, then good for them. If a "Christian Fundamentalist" gets in office by winning enough votes, then he is the duly elected representative of the people and, as such, he speaks for the majority (of those who excersized their right to vote for an elected representative in the government). The minority of Christian Fundamentalists among Christians in general is irrelevant; if anyone of any minority -- no matter how small -- gets elected, then that minority has earned its representation. "Christian Fundamentalists" (and, indeed, any group) can have any power they can sieze.
Thus, Mirecki's comments are not directed towards a group that has violated some portion of the social contracts of our nation (i.e. violated the constitution or particular legislation). He simply diagrees (whether rightly or not is irrelevant) and spoke against their being in the state legislature on those grounds. This is identical in principle to complaining about any religious or philosophical group being permitted to be involved in the state legislature. There is no difference, except that more people seem to dislike these particular ideas and choices of law than those of other groups. Nonetheless, they were able to be elected and to enact their laws legally, and their right to do so ought to be respected.
Hi Copid! I am an armchair scientist. Just a computer tech-support guy who has been force-fed an evolutionary view since childhood in my schools, and in my entertainment. Stopped going to Imax, stopped listening to the typical "100 million years ago this fish needed protection from its enemies, so it evolved poisonuos spikes and camoflage..." voice overs in many "science documentaries" and started thinking a little more for myself. Now I just say BS. It is almost like the dark ages when the "church" held services in all Latin and said to the common folk that the words of scripture are to lofty for you to try and understand so we will interpret it for you. The same is coming from the general sceintific community. "we have bigger words and know more than you so stop trying to discover on your own, and just know that we are correct." The problem is I met God and got saved and that has screwed me up for this world. I am no longer able to see things the way the tv tells me I should. Sorry but I think there is a shift occurring towards an ID worldview. You look at some layers of rock and say, the naturalistic geologists have written textbooks that prove the truth of how theses layers are formed. I look at the same rock and say wow, thats just like the mini-grand canyon that was formed in hours after Mt. St. Helens erupted ... layers and buried animals and all.
"In science class, we teach established scientific results and the scientific method. ID is not an established scientific result and it completely discards the scientific method."
I would say to you that missing links (most of which have been completely debunct) are not the scientific method but art and philisophy. The chain of man to monkey, beautiful artwork, not science... or should I say, a theory not a fact like it is presented in our secular classrooms.
"The geological column clearly shows a time when there were dinosaurs but there were no rabbits. We know that the dinosaurs died somewhere along the lines. Where did the rabbits come from, though?"
Are you sure the dinosaurs are all dead? what makes you say that? I remember hearing about the apparent plesiosaur pulled in the fishing nets of a Japanese fishing boat in 1977 http://www.creationscience.com/FAQ25.html (sorry its the only pic I could find at the moment)
there are also the world wide sightings and legends across the globe of giant creatures that man would hunt and kill. Some of these stories are very recent in the Congo and so forth.
You say the geological column clearly shows a "time" but I say, "BS". The geological column itself is very suspect and has a LOT of hypothesis and theory behind it that many creation scientists and others disagree with. There are layers of rock and sediment with fossils in them is agreed and is seen clearly, but how they got there and when is hotly debated.
As I said, I am not a scientist, just a skeptic. There are many more things that could be said here, but I gots to get to sleep its 4am ... yikes.
gnite y'all
The slashdot coverage makes it seem as if Mirecki resigned his position as a faculty member at the University. He did not. He only resigned as chairman of the Dept. of Religious Studies.
Damn. Nearly 1000 comments, and only one worth reading.
I'm playing my tiny violin for you...
For more examples of how badly Christians are treated, look at this list: Life in Our Anti-Christian America. I'll repeat some of the more obvious examples.
Of course, keep in mind that this list is pretty old. Between super-liberal Bill O'Reilly and noted anti-Christian Ann Coulter, I'm sure you could find plenty of insulting and inaccurate quotes aimed at Christians.
In this wonderful fundamentalist^Wdevout republic, Mullah^Wpreacher Pat Robertson will finally have a place to feel at home, where women will wear chadors^W^Wnot wear bikinis and where all the umma^Wchristian community will be able to lead a life safe from heresy according to the word of Führer^W Father Pat Robertson (God's sole representative on Earth). The Taleban^WChristian warriors will beat up and occasionaly execute heathen, infidels or anyone who doesn't believe and do exactly as they're told to.
Amin^WAhmen.
Lemark!
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
religion attacks you.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I
realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole
one and asked him to forgive me. -- Emo Phillips
I go to the rabbi and I ask him the meaning of life.
He tells me the meaning of life, but he tells it to me in Hebrew.
Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons. --Woody Allen
The post makes it sound as though the professor has resigned "period-end of story". But if you read the article it makes it clear the Prof has just resigned the chair of his department-not his actual "position" at the university. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves what is wrong with the school system...that has created so many people who reject scientific findings and accept an ID or Creationism point of view.
/pedantry
The terms are much debated... some say Agnostic means we have no way of knowing, some say it means we cannot possibly know... I got tired of the word games, and just assumed 'godless heathen' :)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
...it might be nice to have the commforting stories about a protector, afterlife, etc. instead of the truth that we're each on their own, and will die in (at most) a few thousand days.
I will say that I don't have to live with the guilt for breaking rules I don't reallt believe in that most people do.
People can believe whatever they want... I work across from a church, and see people go in all the time. I think they are wasting their time, but I don't bug them... they made their choice, I made mine. ain't freedom spiffy?
I've heard various people use the term... it is intended more or less to point out how "modern" gods are no more reasonable than ancient ones.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Like Molli Ivans, the Texas syndicated journalist writes: "there is no such thing as left and right - what one needs to go and find out - who is getting screwed and who is doing the screwing?
It's obvious - that one of the easiest way to get rich in the USA is to start a church and make sure that everyone learns that this specific church knows the right god - and that if one doesn't give money to this church - one will go to hell. And that those that don't believe in this church and/or this church's god - will go to hell. And of course most churches say this in one way or another.
So these rich folk love screwing both the suckers who give them money - by lying to them (because there is no god) - and screwing the people who don't give them money or believe in their god - by getting the people who donate money to this church - to go and hate/screw the people who don't believe in this particular church and their god - and more often than not, to go and kill those non-believers .
And of course this started way before the crusades - but since the coming of television - this insanity has drastically escalated - especially in the USA.
Usually when someone runs around talking about invisible people - they are thrown into the luny bin! But if someone can run around (on television and other big rooms) and claim to know invisible people who talk to them or talk to someone they know - they are showered with money
So in the end we have rich people - who got rich by screwing people - then begin to attack/screw anyone who shows even a shred of evidence that god may not exist. And of course "science" is on the top of the attack list
In the end - we have people who believe in invisible people - and also believe that one can have a baby without intercourse, and that people can rise from the dead, that the earth is the center of the universe, and that all children are born in sin - so its okay for priests and others to screw children - fornicate that is.
OK, how about this:
It's nothing to be ashamed of, you fucktard.
Better?
I'm glad to see everyone here is so reasonable. It's nice to see so many posts talking about how bad christians are when the fucking muslims are behading people on TV. The level of complete and total misunderstanding about everything and the fact that everyone repeats right wing political propaganda shows just what a bunch of mindless loosers you all are.
Oh, and while I'm at it - Linux isn't that great either so live with it!
No, people are not more complex than mainframes.
People are relatively simple, with a small number of processes culminating in complex interactions and behaviors that we are still learning to understand.
A mainframe is a tremendous number of complex systems and logic processes, culminating in simple behavior that is understood almost completely.
Just because you have decided to not study and understand how the objects in nature do the amazing things they do does not mean that people should be deluded into thinking "someone was behind it," you dope.
That "many scientists" would believe this is simply untrue. It's possible a few dunderheads believe in ID, but I've yet to meet one - and I go out of my way to find them.
He is still a fully tenured professor at the University of Kansas. He only resigned as Department of Religion Chair. The resignation apparently has more to do with a police report he made of an alleged assault that has some serious inconsistancies in it. Some think he made up the assault story, some think he embellished it and others believe him. He now claims he was forced to resign but the other people involved dispute that.
"Kansas Anti-Creationism Professor Resigns"
According to CNN.com, Prof. Mirecki resigned his department chairmanship, but not his teaching position.
While that doesn't change the substance of the current debate, I hope nobody gets confused about what happened to the professor's job.
Hello.
Intelligent Design is a point of view. Here is how. It expresses how amazed we, human beings, are in front of what we see. It says "how could it be possible that so many things works, so precisely without a pre-conceived plan ?"
But... What is conveniently forgotten by this view are the many many many other "attempts" of the evolution... which failed. It's a bit like looking at the top three winners of a race, and wonder at how perfect is this world, in which there is only winners. It does not make sense. So ID does not make rational sense.
How come then, that ID is tempting ? Well, because even though evolution theory is consistent, precise, predictive, provides more, better and verifiable explanations (in one world: it makes logical sense) it lakes one thing: it does not create the sense we human beings are craving for.
Bye. Z.
Don't vote for a politician who takes advice from his dead mother and dog.
Americans who watch news reports about Afghanistan and who lament how backward the taliban is should keep stories like this in mind.
...and stick to Church-based social activities in future.
Love from the Central Scruitinizer.
Stick Men
Allegedly Winston Churchill said: "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
;).
Of course it may be someone else who said that..
English is funny: Think how the word "one" should be pronounced.
The myriad "ough" pronounciations...
And in the US it's common to drive on the parkway and park on the driveway
Two obviously non-Christians (Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek) attack a guy and the entire slashdot community uses it as an excuse to denigrate Christianity. Millions of atheists murder and rape people, but do you see me using that to blanket all atheists as evil? I better not find out that a single slashdotting atheist celebrates Christmas in any way (giving gifts, taking time off from work, etc.)
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
I'm all for speaking about about whatever cause you find deplorable (though I happen to disagree with your stance about religions in general). The issue, though, isn't about his speaking out, it's about the motivation with which he spoke out and the actions that his superiors (in whatever sphere) decided to take about it. In this case it was bigotry (which is his right) and his superiors aren't fans of bigotry (which is their right). Let it be that "speaking out against and deriding them is more a moral imperitive than an intolerant act" -- it still isn't grounds for the notion that they ought not to be allowed in the legislature in principle. In practice, sure (i.e. not voted into office or voted out of office). But not in principle.
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, or whomever else (religious or otherwise) ought to be afforded the same basic respect as anyone else in the public and legal spheres, as long as their activities are not in violation of valid laws. (This "ought" has the weight of constitutionality in my claim, and niether more nor less.)
Sry, I pressed the wrong button =P.. Anyhow my ultimate question is simple - why are we wanting to teach that what we know regarding science is it, no more to explore and prove/disprove - especially when we KNOW that we dont know everything. I would think that in science class, it would be perfectly viable to say there is another theory in how we came to be - I mean it is a fucking theory, and THAT is where science starts... This generation is just going to made to look (more) like the fools we are, if it is found to be scientific proof in the next few hundred years that we come from something other than pure randomness; JUST like the fools that swore up and down that the earth was flat...
Just my 2 cents, Flame away...
Assuming you're not trolling, then I'm truly thrown. I didn't know people this stupid read /.
As the other responder clearly pointed out, by "us", he obviously meant everybody. He wasn't dividing the populace into retarded little factions like you are.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
The latest LJ-World article:
r _blasts_ku_sheriffs_investigation/?ku_news
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/10/professo
First, the assertion that science has a definition identifiable by a finite set of demarcation criteria is heatedly disputed by scientific philosophers. There are many counterexamples of scientific theories (Newton's laws of motion) that failed these artificial criteria in their development.
Second, the assertion that 'ID makes no testable claims' is common but incorrect.
Here is ONE example: A key identifier of design is complexity combined with an independent specification or pattern (for the mathematics behind this, see Dembski's, The Design Inference). One pattern is that the exact same conditions necessary for life correspond to those needed for an ideal observation platform of the universe. A falsifiable test would be the existence of a system that could sustain life and was not suited for observation of external systems.
Third, my "most everyone" includes, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sieks, Janes... My claim might be incorrect if you ignored the most populace continent, Asia.
The controversial part of ID is that it flies in the face of Carl Sagan's materialism. That hits a real nerve. The idea that a person can not (or should not) rely on faith is just as unfalsifiable as pure faith itself.
I read
Millions of atheists murder and rape people, but do you see me using that to blanket all atheists as evil?
Didn't you just do that?
I better not find out that a single slashdotting atheist celebrates Christmas in any way (giving gifts, taking time off from work, etc.)
Screw you, too. Gift-giving derives from Romas celebration of Saturnalia, getting days off work (like on weekends) derives from Sumerian culture (pre-Christian, that too) - if "etc." includes the Christmas tree, that's a fertility symbol (like the Easter Bunny) celebrating the Winter Solistice, and the white-bearded Santa Claus is a creation of an ad agency working for the Coca Cola combany back in the 1930s.
Maybe Americans Christians should not celebrate the 4th of July since that is a celebration of a colony breaking with a Christian British empire?
Sure, and that's a lot of fun. I look into fields in which I have no expertise and enjoy learning about them. The difference is, when I see something that conflicts with my intuition, I tend to assume that it's my lack of data or understanding and look deeper into the matter rather than assuming that I've just demolished a theory that has been studied by thousands of academics with more data than I have. Intuitively, computers really shouldn't work. The tolerances and physics are absolutely amazing. It would be hard to convince somebody who had never heard of a computer that a device with no moving parts except for electrons could do calculations, but it can be done.
You're welcome to that view, but how is it different from somebody telling you about the dark ages? Sure, they've studied some "evidence" and some primary source stuff, but you've never seen it. How do you know it's true? You rely on people who spend their time studying it to boil it down for you. The same holds true for quantum mechanics and relativity. Do you believe in relativity? If so, why? If not, have you looked at all of the data and really studied it?
I don't think that any such thing is coming from the scientific community. You're more than welcome to try to discover things on your own. Just don't be surprised that when you come to silly conclusions after looking at a fraction of a percent of the data, that you are not taken seriously. Do you think that none of the scientists studying evolution have had similar thoughts or looked at the data and assumed a similar naive interpretation? Do you really think that no geologist has ever considered the possibility of a worldwide flood? The fact is, modern geology started when Christian scientists went out to LOOK for evidence of a worldwide flood and instead found a complex geological column with amazingly intricate features.
The problem is that these things look like a religion because the barriers to entry are high. Carl Sagan pointed this out by talking about quantum mechanics. You need to study years and years of mathematics above and beyond what the average person covers before you can even begin to study the physics. If somebody without that background questions it, the scientists generally ignore him until he's done the legwork. It certainly looks like an exclusive priesthood. The difference is, QM doesn't conflict with most religions, so it's left alone. Evolution offends some people, so they use the priesthood argument to make it look like some sort of warring religion with lots of secrets to hide. Every argument you've put forth has been considered and discussed in the literature.
You're very correct. But it's a political shift, not a scientific one. If you actually count the number of scientists who work in the relevant fields who agree that ID is a real science, you'll find that they're in an incredible minority. Sure, many of them believe in a creator. Many of them may believe in a creator who guides the proces
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I better not find out that a single slashdotting atheist celebrates Christmas in any way (giving gifts, taking time off from work, etc.)
That's a remarkably stupid comment. While I do not celebrate Christmas per se, I fully celebrate a winter celebration/feast/holiday. It's a time to have fun with friends and family, and add colour in the middle of bleak and cold winter. The winter celebration is in no way solely a Christian concept. Besides, my workplace shuts down at Christmas, I have no choice in the matter.
Two obviously non-Christians (Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek)
That's a sneaky statement. "Christians can't do bad things, therefore they must evil atheists". You know, they believe in Christ, the God, and the Bible. That makes them Christian. They may not have full understanding of the concept but it's the believe they faith in, so that's what they are. They're Christian, albeit errant Christians.
Millions of atheists murder and rape people,
And millions of Christians murder and rape people too. Given that people who identify as atheists make up 10% of the population in North America, Christian murders and rapists probably outnumber them by an order of magnitude.
Jesus himself gave the ten commandments, they come from the Christ, directly from the mouth of the son of god (allegedely, I think it is all nonsense).
Jesus did many things that went against old testament teachings (like healing people on Saturday), so any Christians paying more attention to the old testament than to the teachings of Jesus are clearly not a real Christian as far as I am concerned, since they are ignoring the teachings of the deity itself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Science has been finding that you don't need $DEITY for the Universe to work.
Once a physical law is explained, a good theory is presented, a model is proposed, one can pray as much as one wants but nature will be perfectly explainable with those and other tools without needing an invisible hand.
That is what horrifed Darwin so much about his theory. He found a godless mechanism to explain how life changes. He did not put his sights in doing so, he was a religious man, but observation took him to the only reasonable conclussion, and that troubled him so much that he delayed the publication of his book until it was completely impossible to keep doing so (since others were arriving to the same conclussions independently).
Science can't stop when it steps in the toes of religion, that would be a dereliction of duty. By explaining how, in many ocassions science is implicitly explaining the why and religious people are not finding comfort in the answers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm not even TRYING to claim that I can support this with anything other than anecdotal evidence, and you know it.
+++ATH0
But there's more stuff in there that I'm too lazy to look up that says something like "faith without works is barren" or something.
+++ATH0
All four people will tell the story of the accident in four differing ways yet they will all be telling the true story.
And this is precisely why witnesses are unreliable, and why you need more than one of them to agree on details in order for their testimony to be solid in court!
Amazing. They don't even realize they're shooting themselves down.
+++ATH0
A rigid Materialism-based outlook is anti-science.
No, rigid materialism is ALL science is. That's its limit, and that's the foundation of its success: It ignores unfalsifiable, chop-logic theories of everything. It doesn't preclude God, Vitalism, karma, or any other methaphysical entity you wish to build your personal outlook on. It is silent on those topics. The fact that some scientists or supporters of science make claims about those topics is human fallibilism on their part. To claim otherwise is to abuse the common usage of the term 'science'.
Vitalism *is* anti-science because it's inclusion makes any theory built upon it un-falsifiable, violating a basic tenet of the scientific method. Your phenomenological hand-waving doesn't change that.
I've always been a bit mystified by those who want science broadened to include their unscientific ideas. They crave the credibility of science and the scientific method, but would do violence to science itself to obtain that credibility.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I have often heard that, but what does "same" really mean? Since they describe this entity with different characteristics, what is the "sameness" referring to? Why is not Zeus also the same god who just happens to be endowed with other characteristics by his prophets?
I think that the philosophical notion of sameness requires either an exact match of properties or a non-fictional object to which the descriptions can refer. I realize that some people would say that this particular god is non-fictional, but still - can the statement that "they refer to the same god" only mean something for believers?
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
I hope some top tier university picks him up and gives him a spot teaching the same sort of material in a high-profile kind of way. He certainly deserves a ton of credit for what he wants to do and the way he planned to do it.
You simpletons would like a nice little black-and-white universe. Yes or no, true or false. Sorry bud, doesn't work that way. I'm sure you believe in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. That's the one that says you can't know BOTH the position and the momentum of a quantum particle, because the act of observing one changes the other. It's not just a quantum phenomena either: The observer affects the observed - we just usually don't notice the effect.
:)
You materialists are no different than the flat-earthers, and no different than the theologians who threw Galileo in the tower for daring to propose that the earth went around the sun. For that matter, you're no different than the ID-ers you oppose. "We Believe in a mechanical universe..."
I fully encourage the USE of SCIENCE to examine higher energetic phenomena. But it's just foolish to pretend that these phenomena don't exist.
Good day, sir.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
> ... those parents pushing ID also Don't deserve to have their home religious teachings purposefully undermined ...
I disagree. If they want their children to be ignorant, they're quite at liberty to withdraw them from the public school system and either home-school or put them into a private fundie school.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Stupid people are easier to control, lie to, and exploit for your own gain.
See: Iraqi War (Vr. 1.0 and 2.0)
That's a sneaky statement. "Christians can't do bad things, therefore they must evil atheists". You know, they believe in Christ, the God, and the Bible. That makes them Christian. They may not have full understanding of the concept but it's the believe they faith in, so that's what they are. They're Christian, albeit errant Christians.
If I believe that I am president, that does not make me president. There are specific criteria for being a christian (though they vary according to denomination). "A tree is known by its fruit" or something like that, though some think that belief is enough.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Well, why won't they let me put up a sign on the courthouse lawn that says "God does not exist", or "The Bible is a fairy tale"? I pay taxes! I vote!
Because of lack of historical context? A lot more of our society is based on the Bible than you might want to believe, and a short, concise listing of laws (even if they are ancient) does fit well with a courtroom. What did you think the constitiution was based on?
Another question. When people testify in court, they usually swear on the Bible. What if we return to the old ways, when people would hold their balls when testifying? Much more appropriate for evolutionists, and I daresay most of our self-professed christians would rather lose their soul than thair balls.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
1) the "overturning of the money changing tables" which seems so innoncent a protest:John 2:15 (King James Version)
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
2) Jesus was all about having some weapons (Luke 23:36)
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
3) Jesus was a racial supremacist and only grudgingly helped inferior races (Mathew 15:24-28):
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
And don't even get started in on Revelations... then again, anyone can make the bible say anything. However, I think hippies foccus too much on the Sermon on the Mount. There is danger in taking something written specifically for one group of people at one point in time (for instance, Paul's epistols) and trying to draw broad generalizations and extrapolate "ultimate trancendent truths" about "the human condition" from any piece of art or literature, the bible included.
There is a reason the Druids did not write anything down, though a great many of them could read or write in Greek and Latin. Once something is written down it cannot be changed. The ancient Europeans were more interested in knowledge and understanding than in retarded crap that infested us from that Eastern cesspool. Neitzche was right. Christianity is evil.
The Greeks, Romans, Celts and Germans knew right well that the earth was round. Their gods were not all powerful. Celtic gods were only believed to help a person in sofar as they helped themselves. Of course, they did believe in auspices and fate and all that sort of stuff. But even their Gods were subject to fate. Plus, most pagan Gods are merely representations of things and ideas which actually exist in nature -- not super ultra outsiders which create all the rules. The Germanic Asir (Wotan et al) were to die at the end of time just like every human, not persist towards infinity.
Christianity is something wholly alien to us. It's a disease. It made us stupid for a long time and is making us stupid again. Of course, the bible is fun to read after watching A Clockwork Orange -- it ads a fun perspective.
So what are they then. They believe in God and Christ, so they sure as hell aren't atheists. They probably aren't Muslim or Budhists either.
According to the more rigid Protestants, the Catholics aren't really Christians. Does that mean that a Catholic who believes he's Christian actually isn't.
The Bible is the source of the Christian faith. Anyone who has faith in the word of the Bible and in the existence of God and Christ is a Christian. Different people and faiths can have different interpretations of the Word, and people can make mistakes while still having faith in the Word. Being a Christian isn't a worldly thing like being President, it's a faith based initiative. As long as someone has the faith in God and Christian they are Christian.
If I'm a citizen of a country and break the rules, I am still a citizen of the country.
I don't think so. I think it is faith in a godless Universe. You cannot prove there is no God, therefore you have faith that there is no God. If you had no belief on the subject whatsoever, you would acknowledge that you do not know.
Look, you said, some posts ago, that you changed your atheist mind and became a religious person because the religion gave you the answers you were looking for. Which answers would that be?
I'm not a religious person, I am a person that does not claim to know whether there is a God or not.
When you ask an athiest something like "what am I?", "why do I perceive the world in the way that I do?", or "what happens to me when I die?", you'll get answers that are perfectly correct. However, the answers are profoundly unsatisfactory from my perspective, because they explain only what happens to the physical part of me - the only part that an athiest will acknowledge the existence of. The wrong question has been answered, because I think there is more to me than that. At least religion addresses the question that I actually asked, even if it doesn't answer it.
It's important that we think about these things, because we may otherwise find ourselves making poor assumptions. There is nothing worse than bad science. You may say that religion is full of poor assumptions. Well, we can find plenty of rubbish religions, but that is not proof that all parts of all religions are always rubbish.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Cthuluh eats you first.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
He was canned. So the cultists in the university nailed him, just after other members of the cult beat him in the head -- which is attempted murder.
AP via CNN.com:
Anti-creationism professor: Resignation was forced
Mirecki recently quit as department head, remains professor
LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) -- A college professor who drew sharp criticism for comments deriding Christian fundamentalists over "intelligent design" said he was forced out as chairman of the university's religious studies department.
Paul Mirecki, who remains a professor at the University of Kansas, said he had no choice when he signed the resignation letter, typed on stationary from the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"The University penalized me and denied me my Constitutionally protected right to speak and express my mind," he said in a written statement Friday for the Lawrence Journal-World. He said his career had been ruined and his speaking engagements canceled.
Mirecki also said he had retained an attorney.
The university "has a duty, as a protector of intellectual honesty and debate, to support its teaching staff when controversial issues are raised," he wrote.
University spokeswoman Lynn Bretz said Saturday that Mirecki resigned the chairmanship last week on the recommendation of faculty members.
The university "stands unequivocally in support of his First Amendment rights and his rights to academic freedom," Bretz said.
The controversy began with a course Mirecki planned to teach called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." The class was proposed after the Kansas Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in its school science standards.
The class was canceled last week after e-mails surfaced in which Mirecki mocked religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He has apologized for those comments.
On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course. Law enforcement officials were investigating.
We're adding the "he's gay" ammo into this? I mean, come on, can we focus on one thing to bitch about the guy at a time?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Heinlin wanted to cut down the pool of voters...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I never said that I was a materialist, or that I considered science to be the be-all and end-all of life's great questions. I have a healthier respect for science than you, I think, because I recognize what it isn't.
You, on the other hand, seem to have a problem with science insofar as it doesn't re-inforce your metaphysical commitments, and your need for science to do so betrays your own insecurity. I don't deny mystical truths, and I don't seek degrading materialist foundations for them.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Most people would not think that is an unfair statement, despite the fact that out of the millions of Republicans in this country, only a few hundred were in the House at the time. If 5% of the people are making 99% of the noise, that 5% WILL become the face for that group.
It's no better than some Blacks being angry with all Whites over a bunch of KKK idiots or some Whites being angry with all Japanese Amercians over Pearl Harbor.
Who made up the KKK? White people, and only white people. Who bombed Perl Harbor? The Japanese, and only the Japanese. So it would have been entirely reasonable for a black person to complain about whites if he was living in rural Alabama in the 1960's, or a person living in the Hawaiian islands to complain about the Japanese after Perl Harbor. Of course, no reasonable person would have blamed ALL whites for the treatment of blacks, or blamed ALL people of Japanese desent for Perl Harbor, anymore than anyone really thinks that ALL Chrstians are rabid fundamentalists who hate evolution and love creationism and ID. But like I said above: it doesn't matter if it's only 5% of the poeple making a ruckus if they are making 95% of the noise: they will be the face for your group.
I got into a similar argument a couple of years ago with a friend who is a moderate Christian, only the subject was Christians and homosexuality rather than Christians and ID. And much like you, my friend was bitching about how homosexuals complained about "Christians" rather than "homophobes who happen to be Christians". I said, part of the reason why is that the former is much easier to say than the latter. It's why we say NASA instead of National Aeronatics and Space Administration. It's why we say "oh" when rattling off phone numbers instead of "zero": zero has two sylables and "oh" is just one. It's to save time.
The other perfectly reasonable reason to complain about Christians wanting to ban gay marriage is because the only poeple pushing for it were either Christians or politicians pandering to Christians. You take Christians out the equation in 2004, and the gay marriage bans would have gone absolutly nowhere. They wouldn't have even been on the table in the first place.
Amd much like my friend, I see you spend all your time complaining about how people should say something like "supporters of ID who happen to be fundamentalists Christians" rather than just "Christians", rather than disavowing the actions of those fundamentalists.
Which brings me (finally) to my point: the only way to prevent people from associating the actions of a vocal but small fraciton of a group with the group as a whole is to speak up. If the Pope would get together with American bishops and the leaders of Catholic schools, and make an annoucement decrying Intelligent Design and declaring support for evloution in science class, that would be big news and go far to dispell the generalization that Christians are responsbile for this crap. But nothing like this has happened yet.
science insofar as it doesn't re-inforce your metaphysical commitments,
oh, but it can, and it does. See my other post in this thread about Mirror Neurons being the biological basis for telepathy. It's only metaphysical so long as the physical mechanism hasn't been discovered yet.
I don't deny mystical truths
then why not use the scientific method to examine them? You know, theory, experiment, revision, wash, rinse, repeat? Why would it be that some phenomena are exempt from scientific scruntiny?
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Why would it be that some phenomena are exempt from scientific scruntiny?
Because, as you so calmly assert, they have no materialist basis. They cannot be studied scientifically. Or are you saying that they do, in fact, reduce ultimately to materialism?
It's only metaphysical so long as the physical mechanism hasn't been discovered yet.
Yes, in fact, you are saying that it's all ultimately "hard, atomic stuff" (as you referred to it earlier), just some unknown, "higher energetic", undiscovered "stuff". So what's wrong? Science not going fast enough for you putting its stamp of approval on NDEs and tribal religious rituals?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Science is a process that can be used to study anything. All levels of existence interact with each other.
Yes, in fact, you are saying that it's all ultimately "hard, atomic stuff" (as you referred to it earlier),
The 'physical mechanism' I spoke of is the means for interaction of the physical body with higher levels. Think of the aforementioned Mirror Neurons as the biological equivalent of radio antennae for higher vibrations.
OBEs have been validated by scientists, just not the "official" ones.
I have to admit, you've got me confused. Maybe it's your (apparent) quirky belief about what science is good for and what it's not. Maybe it's a linguistic thing - the words I used don't mean to me what they mean to you (and we actually are taking the same stance on the issue at hand?). Or maybe I was less than clear in my earlier posts. Whatever. I just don't think it's valid to draw a line of separation, to put scientists on one side and spiritual traditions on the other. Everything is a valid target to shine the scientific process' flashlight on.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Except that Creationists are more likely to be native to the US than to the Vatican.
Creationists are almost universally in one of the Protestant denominations. (And no, I don't mean the specific Protestant Church, but the number of sects who've decided to schism away from the Catholic Church) And no, they have no particular love for the Pope. Heck, some of the Baptists see Catholics as being worse than pagans...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Meh, given the quotations from him in the article summary, I'm wondering whether the reason for him being beaten had more to do with him being an asshole than because of his beliefs.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
An atheist with a concept of God isn't an atheist, by definition.
I can conceive of a world where pegasi fly thr friendly blue skies and unicorns peacefully much grass. I don't believe in that world. I think it is possible to be an atheist without any concept of God, but I'd wager that the majority of them have an idea about him and have just decided they didn't want to believe. Which I personally see as akin to disbelieving that man landed on the moon, but that's just my opinion.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
There is no such thing as a "literal" reading of the Bible, given the history of the document.
People who claim to read the Bible "literally" are either stupid or deliberately deceptive.
... to domination by our witch burning Overlords.
Who says he was really beaten? If he *was* really beaten, who says it was related to ID?
It's funny how so-called "scientists" are so anxious to come to a conclusion with absolutely no objective evidence.
Reading through many of the comments here, I am amazed!
:)
The hypocrasy is astounding and goes to prove the reason and need for the debate and teaching of creationism.
Although I guess an evolutionary view of origins naturally leads to a disrespect and hatred for others of opposing views, calling them idiots and retards because they believe that science proves that evolution DID NOT happen and even can't happen because it is in itself anti-scientific is hypcritical in the highest.
The scientist that have studied long and hard and thought through the physics, biology, mathematics, geology etc. have very powerful reasons to doubt the evolution and naturalistic theories of origins.
Some of the biggest reasons are:
1) life never comes from non-life although there were earlier scientists who believed that maggots appeared from nowhere on rotting meat. This theory is based on non-science err nonsense either works.
2) explosions don't bring order...although one naturalistic-scientist boldly stated, " as a matter of fact, given enough time, a tornado passing through a junkyard could assemble a working Beoing 747"
3) Mutations occur but almost always bring harm and NEVER add new information to a genetic chain. New information is required for one species to change or evolve into another and this does not occur in observable nature anywhere. Infact, DNA which was discovered after the evolution theory is a huge slap in the face to evolution and a dramatic proof of intelligent design.
4) Science itself was vastly vived by a creationist perspective. The creation around us suggests a Creator that is why it is called creation. And the God of Creation created us in His image to create, explore, examine, study, analyze, record, name, etc. which is why us humans are having this whole debate on this thing we created called the world-wide-web in the first place.
These are just a few of the reasons why creationism is a more excellent science than the blind faith of an evoltuionary naturalist viewpoint. Evolutionists can't take the heat which is why they get so angry at opposing views. Step back folks and think for yourselves, study both sides and you will begin to change your mind, its inevitable because reason will hold out where it is free to exist.!!
PS Merry Christmas
...that he copped an imaginary beating?
An Atheist definitely believes that there is no God or Gods.
An Agnostic does not believe in God or Gods, but will not definitively say that there is no God or Gods.
The distinction is: an Atheist has a belief in no God(s); an Agnostic has no belief in God(s).
Your position is "I have seen no God or Gods, but will be interested in them if they turn up", which is clearly Agnostic.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Is that it doesn't seem to tolerate other Christian based religions and in fact believe that those followers will go to hell. For example, I've been raised Catholic and I've been told by a Christian that I'll go to hell.
I've never heard that sort of talk about other religions from any of my family relatives or friends (i.e. including my 83 y/o grandfather). There was a time when I almost hated Christianity because I found everyone trying to "save you" to have no respect for my own religion, but luckily I had better judgement and realized that there are only a few bad apples and most people only mean good.
The point here is, there seems to be a lower tolerance towards other religions when it comes to Christianity, and it's things like this that start wars, imo.
"Is consciousness an illusion, an emergent property of a sufficiently complex system?"
Yes.
Now, you may not like that answer, but it really doesn't matter what you like.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
"I am not a fundamentalist"
Yes you are, you're just afraid of the negative connotations associated with the term.
That being said, fundie or no, you're all the same irrational, delusional whackos, regardless of what you call yourselves.
God is fake. You've been had. You bought a line of crap, and instead of using your mind, you chose to take the easy way and believe lies.
Jesus was just a guy, surrounded by people who embellished his accomplishments. I have no doubt Jesus also embellished his accomplishments.
Which is more likely, cultists revising history to favor themselves, or "miracles"?
Right. You got rooked, deal with it and stop believing in fairy tales.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Atheist == A + Theist == NonTheist == definitely no God(s).
Agnostic == A + Gnostic == NonGnostic == definitely not able to know if there is (a) God(s).
Atheists and Theists are both Gnostics. They both have a definite belief about God(s), whether positive or negative.
The set looks like this (ASCII art warning):...yet you are trying to redefine it like this......which might make you a legend in your own mind, but doesn't help with clarity at all.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Whoa. There are some major facts missing from this whole Mirecki discussion. For those who are not informed about (or involved with) the issue, Mirecki's e-mails (and history) make it clear that he is an avid atheist. He was creating a class about Christianity that was to be taught by several carefully chosen atheists in order to put the "fundies" (fundamentalists, and in general, Christians) in their place. (Mirecki's words, not mine.) Evidenced by his own postings to an atheist e-mail list, he was creating the class for an agenda, not to teach the topic. This is why the University leadership took action. The class (and he) would probably still be there if he would have called it what the teaching was about... something like "Removing God from Religion." The religion department would eat stuff like that up. However, if you claim to be teaching theistic religions then assigning teachers to specifically discount the purpose of God in those religions (and to "stick it to the fundies"), well, that is poor education run by an agenda. (That's right, it's not just the theists that push agendas.)
If you look even closer (beyond what the web site says about his "areas of expertise") you see that under his watch, he has run a Religious Studies Department that is taught almost entirely by atheists. This is not only negligent, it's overt agenda. While there are atheistic religions, how would anyone learn about world religions without some theists providing a rounded view. People (including Mirecki) are all upset about the Intelligent Design issue, and they blame the Christians for trying to teach bad science... Mirecki is pulling the same stunt by trying to teach theistic religions while discounting God. That's a role reversal, such as a Science teacher who doesn't believe in Science. If that's hypocritical, then Mirecki is the worst of the bunch.
...continuing to abuse the language won't get you anywhere.
:-) and goes on to qualify this definition by explaining that many Strong Atheists, Agnostics and Theists reject the use of the term "Atheist" without an associated definite rejection of deity.
Until you believe (or "know", if you prefer to express it that way) that there is/are no divine being(s), you do not qualify as an Atheist, regardless of whether you think of yourself as an Atheist or not.
The closest in any of the authoritative literature that I've been able to find classes this as "Weak Atheism" (and who wants to be a weak Atheist?
All of the other authorities use a definition along the lines of "someone who denies the existence of god".
I find it interesting that rarely is the "god" capitalised (which implies that the definition was not sourced from a Christian), and no definition that I could discover thought Polytheism worth dismissing -- only Monotheism. There is a further interesting parallel to this in Masonic ritual, if that's a topic which piques your curiosity.
Meanwhile, your invokation of a concensus of SlashDot posts to define a term is hardly scientific. Consider it rejected. (-:
You could go one step further, to Antitheism, which asserts basic Atheism ("there is/are no God(s)") as a stepping stone to "Believing in anything other than Atheism is dangerous". At that point, there is no practical difference between you and an Inquisitor (speaking of which, a College of the Inquisition was recently opened in Poland).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Thank you.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.