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.
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).
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:)
Exactly right. Altevogt is the fellow who was lurking on the email list to which Mirecki sent the note about "fundies", and who then shared the email publicly in order to discredit Mirecki. Whether or not that tactic is ethical, he's hardly an objective observer.
And I can't believe that the townhall.com column is the transcript of an actual interview; it's obviously satire. We're supposed to believe that Mirecki listened patiently to a couple dozen questions and replied "no comment" to each one, rather than simply cutting short the conversation at the outset?
You seem to have confused atheism with agnosticism.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
If you look at Mirecki's areas of expertise his irritation with fundamentalists becomes all the more understandable. His areas areas are Ancient Mediterranean Religion, Early Christianity, and Coptic Papyrology. That means that he knows a lot about about religion in the area in which Christianity developed about the origins of Christianity, and about branches of Christianity that either died out (e.g. gnosticism) or have followed a rather different course from the one that led to fundamentalism (e.g. Coptic Christianity). For someone with this background, the belief of fundamentalists that their interpretation of the particular compilation of texts that they consider holy is God's Truth must seem particularly crazy. I can't speak for him, but I bet that to him fundamentalists seem ignorant, naive, and arrogant even if one looks just at the religious texts and their interpretation, without concerning oneself with the conflict between fundamentalist beliefs and science.
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.
As a card-carrying Southern Baptist, I'd like to say that I'm insulted, but sadly, your assessment is more true than not. We have, particularly in the last 20 years, taken on an anti-intellectualism stance that borders on the kind of thing that you see in HS jocks, where they apparently take their pride in NOT being intellectual. It's as if being educated about science and history (meaning, using books other than The Bible) becomes an immediate mark of suspicion.
Fortunately, the history of the Baptist denomination is one of independent behavior, so we have no pope or central authority figure who can tell us what to believe, or what creed we have to sign up for in order to stay members of a Baptist church. (I could go into great detail about some of the finer points of Baptist tradition that demonstrate this kind of independent thinking, but that's a bit OT... not Old Testament.)
As it stands today, much of the work that had been done in integrating pastoral care with well-researched psychology is virtually out of the cirriculum in most of our seminaries. Sadly, the work of Baptist leaders and theologians in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's has been cast aside by a large segment of our denomination in favor of segregating language/theology, and radically poor politics.
In spite of this, there are a few of us left who still think for ourselves, so please hesitate to flip the bozo bit on all of us just yet.
Tim
Uh, he wasn't saying to look for an answer besides God. He was saying that he doesn't understand why you need organised religion to worship a God. Organised religion hardly has the best track record so its a pretty valid point.