Posted on 11/29/2005 9:31:13 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Kansas Prof. Apologizes for E-Mail
11 minutes ago
A University of Kansas religion professor apologized for an e-mail that referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face."
In a written apology Monday, Paul Mirecki, chairman of the university's Religious Studies Department, said he would teach the planned class "as a serious academic subject and in an manner that respects all points of view."
The department faculty approved the course Monday but changed its title. The course, originally called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies," will instead be called "Intelligent Design and Creationism."
The class was added to next spring's curriculum after the Kansas State Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in its standards for science teaching. The vote was seen as a big win for proponents of intelligent design, who argue that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism — a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation — camouflaged in scientific language.
Mirecki's e-mail was sent Nov. 19 to members of the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, a student organization for which he serves as faculty adviser.
"The fundies (fundamentalists) want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category mythology."
Mirecki addressed the message to "my fellow damned" and signed off with: "Doing my part to (tick) off the religious right, Evil Dr. P."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Thanks for digging that up Andrew :o)
RWP: If you come up with some symbol that in a witty way takes a symbol of fundamentalist Islam and adapts it to affirm evolution, I will be delighted to display it.
P-Marlowe: Ok, Mr. Principles. Put this on your faculty door or your University web site:
Just in case you are unaware of it, your symbol doesn't meet RWP's conditions.
And it seemed to fit so well, too :o(
That has nothing to do with evolution; it's not witty, it's crude; it doesn't use an Islamic symbol, and it's not directed specifically at fundamentalist Islam.
You are welcome. You also might want to ping the person who asked for a citation.
I already did, but I suspect that he didn't really want one.
oops!! Sorry I don't read every message.
In other words you are too chicken to post an anti Fundamentalist Islam symbol or wear an anti-Fundamentalist Islam T-Shirt, but you feel free to walk into class wearing a desecrated Christian Ichthus symbol to show your distaste for Fundamentalist Christians. Well lets see you publicly show your distaste for Funadamentalist Islamicists. Wear something like that to teach your class. I dare you.
Put up or shut up.
More to the point, no evidence has been presented to indicate that Barret had his license to practice medicine revoked or otherwise "non-voluntarily" surrendered. And if there were such evidence, surely it would have been presented by the defense in the case cited....
If the professor is not an atheist, the presupposition of the class is that all but one the religions studied are false. Therefore, any objective evidence for the veracity of the others will be selectively ignored (probably) in favor of the "purpose" of the professor. Therefore any claim to impartiality is specious from the beginning.
"Q. Are you still licensed in both states?
A. Let my West Virginia license lapse.
Q. When you say you let your license lapse in West Virginia, what do you mean?
A. I didn't continue paying the fees, I didn't take the postgraduate education that they required.
Q. Well, were you delicensed by West Virginia?
A. No. No. Probably still there; I Just stopped paying the fees.
Q. Okay. So that was a voluntary decision on your part, West Virginia didn't delicense you and involuntarily take your license away from you?
A. Correct.
Q. You just let it lapse?
A. Correct. "
"Q. Sitting here today, do you have any information that Dr. Stephen Barrett was ever delicensed by the state of Pennsylvania or any place else in the United States of America?
A. No Information firsthand.
Q. Do you have any secondhand information other than what you've provided us?
A. Only the material that I've gotten from the sources I've mentioned. "
"Q. Do you know how to check a license of a professional health care worker here in Pennsylvania?
A. No.
Q. You don't?
A. I haven't ever done it. "
"Q. So the terminology "delicensed" you attribute to Tim Bolen?
A. Correct.
Q. And you are saying you're not even sure exactly what it means?
A. I used his statements.
Q. But when I talked about your license in West Virginia, you were sure that you were not delicensed?
A. I, actually I'm not.
Q. Now you're not sure.
A. Well, if you're using it, a very specific legal term, I don't know what the status is. It could be dellcensed, it could be unlicensed. I have no idea."
"Q. In other words, he's telling you: I'm just like you in West Virginia, I let my license lapse, let it go into inactive status?
A. If he's being truthful and it's an honest representation. But I don't know Dr. Barrett, and like I said, I got it from various sources that his license was dellcensed, his, he was delicensed.
Q. Well, are you trying to tell us today that you still believe he was delicensed?
A. if you're telling me it's a technical legal term, then I'd have to investigate it further and find out exactly how it's used so I use it accurately and properly. "
well done.
How dare you go to the record for the facts, and not simply take the word of Barrett's enemies? What a fascist thing to do. Fascist.
Your comments are inaccurate, and your intention here is clearly deception. Why do you attempt to defend a charletan like Barrett?
He did not go to the record, he went to the quack's personal site.
You're actually endorsing his deception?
LOL.
What you are calling a "desecrated Christian Ichthus symbol" could also be taken as a symbol that implies Christianity and the ToE are compatible and complimentary. This is what many Christian religions think.
It seems to me it's all in the eye of the beholder, or the offended.
Not that personal anecdotes really prove anything one way or another, but my late uncle was a chiropractor and a firm believer in nutritional therapies. He developed colon cancer and refused to have surgery, chemo or radiation. He was convinced that he could cure himself with the nutritional therapies he'd been pushing on his patients for years. He died a year after he was diagnosed. He also believed that you could "read" a person's physical health based upon which fingers tremble when you hold your hand out with the fingers extended.
And this is sort of apropos of nothing, but along the lines of the "dehydrated toad urine" thread...one of the supplements he tried to get my grandmother (his mother) to take after she had to be moved to an asisted care facility was based on dehydrated bovine urine and other parts. Fortunately, she still had enough of her faculties left to refuse.
If you wish you can believe anything you wish on the quackpot's site, but he has a really poor record on the truth, like 100:0 or thereabouts.
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