The Omnifarium - Religion/BeatenUpInKansas.html

Dis ID in Kansas, Get Beaten Up

Category: Religion
Thu, 08 Dec 2005, 21:29

Professor Paul Mirecki, chairman of the Religious Studies department at the University of Kansas was beaten up along a rural road south of Lawrence. His attackers made reference to a graduate level course he was planning to teach called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Other Religious Mythologies".

Mirecki decided to offer the class after the Kansas Board of Education, loaded with fundamentalist Christians, decided to add criticism of evolution into the science curriculum for primary and secondary schools. This policy has turned the state of Kansas into a sort of educational laughing stock. According to one report, Mirecki stated: "The KU faculty has had enough. Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It is clearly not."

The proponents of "intelligent design" want to make it appear that ID is a reasonable alternative to evolution. But some supporters clearly believe that reason is not the way to proceed. Rather than take the advice of science educators and researchers, the Kansas Board of Education has mandated that ID be introduced to science students. They have also gone so far as to rewrite the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations for natural phenomena! And now, it would seem that some are willing to back up their beliefs with their fists. Clearly, the message is that if you support evolution, you are not welcome in Kansas.

In a somewhat related story, Pat Robertson has stepped into the controversy and exposed ID as religion. This of course runs quite contrary to the aims of the main proponents of ID who try to portray it in strictly scientific terms. Their strategy is simple. Creationism has been branded as religion, and so can't be taught in public schools in the United States. But if it can be expressed in purely scientific terms, then there's no reason to keep it out of science classes. But Robertson made it quite clear in his comments that support for ID is the equivalent of support for God.

When the voters of Dover Pennsylvania turfed out a pro-ID school board and replaced it completely with people opposed to the teaching of ID in Dover science classes, Robertson threw a typical hissy fit: "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a natural disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember you voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for help because he might not be there."

Now doesn't that just sound like a gangster pushing his protection racket? Fundamentalist Christians claim to be on the side of morality and righteousness. But clearly, some feel it necessary to resort to threats of intimidation or violence. In contrast, you'll never hear a scientist saying "accept evolution or something bad will happen to you". They don't have to.

Hans

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