Eventually I will get back to what I really want to do here...and not seem like just another liberal Kansas blog but since I am an evolutionist as well as a religious person what's happening can't go without more notice. First KU, through Provost David Shulenburger responded to the uproar about the KU religion course that has all the ID and creationists upset. In his response he notes that calling ID a myth is not an affront...
"A myth refers to the common use of stories or rituals to symbolize in a meaningful manner the core beliefs of a religion; it does not refer to any religion as a whole."
He is right but I think he is falling into the fundamentalist trap of equating a narrow set of conservative beliefs with Christianity which is exactly what people do all the time. If you want evidence of this simply look at this most recent flap around an e-mail message (apparently made on a yahoo group by Paul Mirecki) belittling intelligent design proponents. Now the conservatives are really out for blood!
I sympathize with Dr. Mirecki but I do have to wonder about someone so naive as to think e-mail is somehow private.
In today's journal world you will also find my minor contribution to the frey in terms of a letter to the editor. Of course this letter immediately attracted the attention of one of those anti intellectuals who frequent newspaper response boards who called me a:
"Behold the Noodly Appendage of the Great Flying Spagetti Monster!"
Of course feeling great because I had attracted the attention of one of Lawrence's finest illluminaries Ragingbear, I was promptly deflated when search his response history found that he calls any opponent of ID the same thing. Obviously he is unaware of the common public admission on the part of ID advocates that the designer's nature is outside the scope of science and could just be a space alien.
I hope Mr. Bear takes my response in good humor.
No comments:
Post a Comment