Hoping his creationism and intelligent design class would serve as a "nice slap in [the] big fat face" for the supporters of such ideas, a University of Kansas religious studies professor got more than a smack Monday morning.
Paul Mirecki had planned to teach a course titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and Other Religious Mythologies."
According to the Associated Press, Mirecki ran into trouble when an e-mail he'd written to members of the college's Society for Open Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA) - to which he serves as faculty adviser - became public.
The e-mail included the slap comment and described supporters of intelligent design as "fundies." This led to the course's cancellation.
A few days later, during a drive through the country, Mirecki pulled over to allow a tailgating truck to pass. Instead, the truck pulled over, and its two passengers beat Mirecki with their fists and a metal object. Mirecki managed to drive himself to the hospital and did not suffer severe injuries.
There are many things one could say about this strange saga, most of them obvious and thus somewhat meaningless: Don't e-mail something if you're not comfortable with the world reading it; Mirecki's assaulters' actions should not be used to smear real Christians; my sympathies go out to both Mirecki and his misguided attackers.
However, for me, the two most intriguing words in this tale are "Open Minded."
I've tweaked Christianity enough; it's only fair that atheism, agnosticism and secularism get poked too.
Having checked out SOMA's Web site, I began to ask the question, "Where does 'Open Minded' come into play?" Sure, they've had religious panel discussions, but the group's purpose seems to be to promote secularism. And that's fine - except when the members align "Open Minded" with that quest.
Frankly, atheism and agnosticism can often be just as dogmatic as any religion.
They've got "The Truth," and they've figured out "the way things really are" - just like the Christians they ridicule. Mirecki's class sure sounded extremely "Open Minded."
The universe is like a massive painting in the Louvre. And we're all cursed with pinhole glasses.
We're looking at this picture one pixel at a time, and all we can do is collect our tiny scraps of data and struggle to piece them into comforting wholes.
Such is human existence: We are imprisoned by limited perceptions. We're only capable of perceiving the tiniest fractions of the universe.
We spend our whole lives seeing just a tiny portion of humanity, ourselves, this planet and the universe.
Still, we think we have it figured out. Sometimes we're confident enough to beat up someone else. We don't realize that person is just embracing pixels we haven't seen yet.
And we don't even realize what we're seeing is our perception of the pixel, not "the pixel itself."
This kind of thinking tends to lead to a disbelief in belief - which is, unfortunately, a belief in itself. Thus, it is also an idea needing to be challenged.
The ideal state is continual ideological flux, expansion and destruction.
Beliefs need to be continually deconstructed so that new pixels of the painting can be incorporated into our guesses.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of this spiritual gobbledygook - but I've just found continual positive results with these ideas. I'm more optimistic and excited to learn. People don't anger me as easily.
But most excitedly, life becomes a journey where with each and every step, you arrive at your destination.
Write to Dave at swimminginbrokenglass@gmailcom
"Professor beaten; attackers cite KU creationism class"
http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/living/education/13337930.htm template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
"SOMA website"
http://www.ku.edu/~soma/
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