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Thursday, December 08, 2005

More opinion on Mirecki

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PZ Myers • 75 Comments (last page)

It takes an Australian to be sufficiently distant to view the situation objectively: John Wilkins has an excellent assessment of the state of the Mirecki mess.

And of course, David Neiwert weighs in. He also zeroes in on what is really the most evil comment in this whole situation, the most un-American, un-patriotic, most indefensible and most offensive argument made by any participant in this whole charade…and it wasn't said by Mirecki. It was by Republican state Senator Karin Brownlee.

We have to set a standard that it’s not culturally acceptable to mock Christianity in America.

Everyone who was so upset at Mirecki's rhetorical comment that teaching ID as mythology would be a slap in the face to the fundies…how many of you have put half as much energy into damning the threat to free speech and the palpable theocratic oppressiveness of that particular statement, hmmm? Do you think we'll see Brownlee hounded by the public, harrassed and shamed, abandoned by her colleagues, and resigning from her position sometime in the near future?

I encourage everyone to mock Christianity freely. You can mock atheism, too, if you want. Just don't lose sight of the real problem here: it's not Mirecki, it's the self-satisfied, blinkered mob that worships their brand of ignorance as sacrosanct, and will defend it with public attacks and oppression.


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Comments:
#52837: — 12/08  at  08:41 AM
Well then I guess we're just going to have to be culturally unacceptable.


#52838: — 12/08  at  08:41 AM
Mock atheists? Why, that's sacrisecular!


#52840: — 12/08  at  08:46 AM
Free speech has to do with legal acceptability, not cultural acceptability. It is, for example, legally acceptable to mock African-Americans but, thankfully, not culturally acceptable to do so. (Or am I just surrounded by a bubble of polite people in an otherwise mocking world?)


#52841: — 12/08  at  08:48 AM
Let's allow David Hume to lead off the mockery- nobody's ever done it better.

"Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the name of rational."


#52842: — 12/08  at  08:48 AM
Hell, we need to set a standard that makes it more okay to mock Christians. The whole religion makes no sense at all, and I really don't think we should stop being critical of ideas because people are really attached to them.

I really can't see the benefits in stopping critical thought.


#52855: Orac — 12/08  at  09:27 AM
Michelle Malkin (and other right-wingers) are now insinuating that this whole thing is a fake hate crime.

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com



#52856: — 12/08  at  09:29 AM
Where's the mocking? It's being way too generous to put ID on the same level as, say, the Tiamat myth. That, and Genesis, and similar myths are poetic expressions at the wonder of creation. They clearly merit study--or even reverence and awe at the human imagination extending back so many millennia.

ID, on the other hand is not an ancient myth but a modern fraud, and ought to be taught in the same class as Ponzi schemes and Nigerian email fraud.

Even that would not be mocking Christianity... well not as long as IDers insist that ID is not Christianity.


#52862: — 12/08  at  09:41 AM
It figures that christians would have their version of the muslims' "Osama did a terrible thing, but..."


#52864: MBains — 12/08  at  09:43 AM
PaulC, you said it well for me. Christianity is a wonderful and terrible expression of the attempts of large pockets of our species to figure out their universe pre-scientifically. Anthropologically, these religions are seen as markers of intellectual development.

ID attempts to throw our species' culture back many centuries to a time where "God did it... " made as much sense as anything else in explaining the Nature of our universe.

IDists are the current Apex of Reactionarism. They go waaayyy beyond Conservatism.


#52867: — 12/08  at  09:52 AM
Michelle Malkin (and other right-wingers) are now insinuating that this whole thing is a fake hate crime.

That's Malkin's normal pattern, that's always worked for her: to take any news item that reflects poorly on wingnuts and to declare it's a fraud. And of course, when it's proven it's authentic, she never acknowledges this.


#52873: — 12/08  at  10:07 AM
from Malkin's article:

...but given the prevalence of staged hate crimes since the Tawana Brawley hoax two decades ago


"it happened twenty years ago, and I can't think of any since then, but, hey, that proves it anyway." Oy vey.

by the way, Dembski is on the bandwagon too...


#52875: — 12/08  at  10:07 AM
The problem with ID is that god's just not that smart. Average at best.


#52876: — 12/08  at  10:08 AM
I didn't notice such a broadminded tolerance when I mocked Islam here.


#52877: — 12/08  at  10:09 AM
We have to set a standard that it’s not culturally acceptable to mock Christianity in America.


If only she were saying that we Christians have to set for ourselves, and live up to, a standard that would make it culturally unacceptable to mock our beliefs (that is, doing so would only expose the mockers to justified ridicule). Unfortunately we do not live up to such standards and, in any event, I have no doubt at all that what Ms Brownlee means is that mocking Christians should be 'culturally unacceptable' in the same was as it used to be for black people to get 'uppity' and enforced in the same manner.







non-Christians would chide those who did mock Christians


#52880: Rebecca — 12/08  at  10:12 AM
This whole thing has really bothered me from the outset. After all, Mirecki's comments were made to a listserv. As far as I'm concerned, that's like being in a private conversation with like-minded friends, and it should have no bearing on one's job.

I say we collectively mock Karin Brownlee. I think I would find the exercise entertaining.


#52881: — 12/08  at  10:12 AM
I didn't notice such a broadminded tolerance when I mocked Islam here.

Mock Islam all you want.


#52884: — 12/08  at  10:21 AM
But no mocking of squid, OK?


#52885: — 12/08  at  10:32 AM
Actually I'm not surprised by that PC comment. COnsider this one, made by Myers on panda's thumb:

<blockquote>
I'm sure we all agree that whoever perpetrated this crime needs to be brought to justice and handled by the rule of law, and that physical violence against either side of the evolution-creation debate must be discouraged.
<\blockquote>

Are there any instances where a pro-evolution activist has lifted a hand against any religious people?

There is a tendency to try to balance which was ground in during the 90's. We see it all the time in Israel, when right wingers assault left wingers. The press and gov't then admonish both sides, for some reason.

I think that we should openly denounce violence from the fundamentalist side, since this is what's going on, and when and if one of us attacks a fundamentalist violently, then we'll denounce him too. Such PC comments only reinforce the violent side into even more self-righteous statements like the one above.


#52888: — 12/08  at  10:34 AM
Been here, done that, CBBB. Discovered that, around here, some pigs is more equal than other pigs.

Krill: Dunn, Lapchick.

Lapchick, who carved the letters NIGER on his chest and blamed rednecks, is still treated as a respectable authority on his specialty, which is racism in sports.


#52889: Orac — 12/08  at  10:35 AM
More right-wingers trying to insinuate that Mirecki is pulling a fast one:

Mirecki Resigns
Get a Picture
Malkin admits it "may seem mean-spirited" that she calls into question "hate crime"
Kansas bigot invents crazy attack story

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com



#52890: — 12/08  at  10:37 AM
Bored Huge Krill writes: "'it happened twenty years ago, and I can't think of any since then, but, hey, that proves it anyway.' Oy vey."

Granted that Malkin's reference to "prevalence" of staged hate crimes is not quite right, neither is your reference to not being able to think of "any" since then. I mean, the two sentences from Malkin immediately following the one you quote cite specific examples occurring within the last year.


#52897: — 12/08  at  10:44 AM
Been here, done that, CBBB. Discovered that, around here, some pigs is more equal than other pigs.

Well personally I would disagree with people who bash one religion but let another slide. But Christian bashing is the sport of choice around here because most people around here are from the US, UK, or Canada and they deal with Christians are a far more regular basis than people of other religions.
Plus it counter-balances a mass media which tends to let lunatics like Pat Robertson slide.


#52904: — 12/08  at  11:06 AM
Harry,
Got any links about Lapchick and his masochistic obsession with a certain African nation?


#52905: — 12/08  at  11:08 AM
In the light of Brownlee's quote, I will remind that Mirecki's e-mail mocked "Fundies", not Christians in general.

As with the whole "religion vs. science" alleged battle, the Fundies wish to portray themselves as representing the entirety of Christianity.


#52919: Loris — 12/08  at  12:14 PM
I for one find it outrageous that fundamentalists seem to think that morality only applies when it is convenient.
Anyone ever notice how the crazy militia people tend to be fundamentalist Christians?

This kind of attack is why I have never put the Darwin Fish on my car. It's actually dangerous for people to be evolutionists. That's the bottom line.


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