CNN.com – Professor treated for roadside beating – Dec 6, 2005 — Oh Kansas, what has gone wrong with thee?
LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) — A college professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives said he was beaten by two men along a rural road early Monday.
University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said the men referred to the class when they beat him on the head, shoulders and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.
“I didn’t know them,” Mirecki said of his assailants, “but I’m sure they knew me.
This is the sort of thing that took place in Nazi Germany. Kansas should be ever so proud.
found by Natefrog
Be very careful with the Nazi analogies. Confer Godwin’s Law…
Fear not. They will be touched by the Noodly Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and His vengeance will be extruded on them.
http://www.venganza.org/
First post! (maybe)
Assault is not very christian behaviour is it?
Anyways, shouldn’t they forgive the professor? Isn’t that the christian thing to do?
(nod to Bill Hicks)
The US may be a first world country economically but this is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if it is a first world country intellectually too.
Paul — why consider Kali and Xhrist antithetical?
Christians succumb to violence, how shocking! With few examples you can’t have religion without rampant emotions. This isn’t a liturgical problem, rather a group behavior problem. These people are prone to violence regardless of the discussion.
Christians are a violent bunch; witness the Crusades, the Inquisition, assorted witch burnings, etc. Note that most of their violence occurs when they out number their victims.
What do you expect? If you believe in something that can not be proven rationally then you by definition are IRRATIONAL.
These are the same guys that tell me I’m a heathen for being an Eastern Orthodox Christian. Yes, venerating icons is a sin, but beating the crap out of some poor professor is not. Gotcha!
I myself am a Christian, not fundamental, nor evangelical but Roman Catholic. I’ am not at all suprised by this situation; in the small southern town of which I was raised the fundamentalist Christians hold the most influence. Prejudice, racism, and homophobia were often preached from their pullpits as well as sharp tounged, accusatory remarks about other Christian denominations, mainly holliness, and catholic. I just wanted to say that we’re not all pedophiles, abortion clinic bombers, gay bashers, or as in this case outright mindless thugs. Jesus Christ NEVER taught these things if you don’t believe me then read all four gospels! I do apologize for the actions of these dull witted psychopaths, and just wanted to let all the bloggers know that there are those of us amongst the fold who are devout. Thats not to say that we don’t sin, or that we don’t make mistakes, but in Christ Jesus we do have an advocate, and savior. If you really want to be a christian then aspire to be more like Jesus every day! Thanks for listening to me rant.
The class made national news when a Nov. 19 e-mail Mirecki wrote was disseminated to politicians and news organizations in which he referred to religious fundamentalists as “fundies” and said his class would serve as “a nice slap in their big fat face.”
http://www.dailycolonial.com/go.dc?p=3&s=1805
Part of the blame here lies on the victim. Sure, you have the right to free speech, but you should know better to insult someone. If you are going to insult a bunch of rednecks, do it from a safe distance like Berkley. There is a big difference between the Spaghetti Monster, which pokes fun at an incompetent school board, and the angle that this guy takes. What did he think would happen if he gave Hoss and his beer drinking buddies “a nice slap in their big fat face.”
That said, I hope they find those idiots and throw them in jail. It gives the rest of us “fundies”, a bad name.
p.s. No, It’s not Bush’s fault either.
Ah… it’s a breath of fresh air to see extremists that are not Muslims get press coverage. The whole Muslim terrorist thing is getting old.
I do not condone what the residents of Kansas did to this man, but it seems pretty clear to me that Mirecki realized he stepped over the line on this one.
Do I blame him (Mirecki) for what happened to him? No, I don’t. But, he should have realized that he was going to make some people angry with his comments. And, anyone who has done any risk analysis would understand, if you’re going to make people angry, do it from as far away as possible.
What I find most unfortunate is that the University decided to cancel the class. Hopefully one of the universities in my part of the country (Washington state) will hold a similar class. I would like to take a class on this subject.
BTW, Chris Eaton is right…It isn’t Bush’s fault.
G
Christians don’t beat up professors just because they’re evolutionists. The slap in the face to fundamentalists is that Paul Mirecki is a professor of religious studies. The unforgivable offense is that this professor is a state sanctioned authority figure who revels in his arrogant dogmatism. It was stated in the story that Mirecki is so greatly certain that Intelligent Design, God and the Bible are religious mythologies that he goes out of his way to mock conservative Christianity. To many bigoted fundamentalists, he was asking for a beating.
To me this seems like another case of a college professor thinking he is above his students enough that he can get away with berating them. I’ve seen it before, “some” professors get kicks by screwing with students, and students take revenge(duh). Human nature at work.
Nothing special, religious or not. On the bright side, this is America, so he got off with a simple beating. In many parts of the world, he would be killed for being so foolish.
Perhaps the professor made up this assault story to further his cause? His story sounds a bit suspicious. It’ll be interesting to see if they catch anyone.
Here is the base reference to the peculiar weirdness that took place in the beat-up the professor process:
http://nationalreview.com/comment/boyles200511301455.asp
the guys does seem like a jerk..mayb not as much a jerk as, say, Ward Churchill though. As much as I’d like to disagree with the “he got what he deserved” post above, it seems as if he was asking for it — unless this story is hogwash. I mean if you go into a Latino bar and begin to joke about “wetbacks” you might be asking for a pounding.
Whatever the case he WAS looking for PR. He got it.
I can’t believe that some of you said he had it coming to them! Sure, his comments are inflammatory, but getting a beating for them isn’t justified in this society. By your reasoning, both Dvorak and Paul T. deserve to get their collective asses handed to them for their jabs.
Gang, you need to realise that you can just avoid or ignore him if his comments offend you, not take some of the same old lame excuse for vigilante justice to him. And I thought this place was populated by intelligent, civilised people… my mistake.
Wow, that was an interesting evolution. It started out with Christian-bashing and morphed into blame-the-victim. Once I heard the Crusades and such I was going to dig up my old post from a month or two ago lamenting how people like that give all Christianity a bad name and turn some people to just that kind of rhetoric. Maybe I will later. But the transition to “the bitch had it coming” types of arguments is amazing, even the ones with the “I don’t condone it” disclaimer attached. Whatever he said, wherever he said it, doesn’t justify such behavior. Period. You could say it was stupid to do so, but the issue is still the people whe beat him up, not him. People will say things you don’t like. You have to be able to deal with it.
Awww… you know Xtians, they beat up their wives on the “she looked slutty” excuse.
Listen, if you walk up and down the street insulting everyone you meet, sooner or later you are going to run up against someone that will kick the shit out of you. It really has nothing to do with religion. It’s called human nature.
Most of us learned that lesson as children. We understand that some “free speech” has a price attached to it. If you can’t back it up with a good left hook, then maybe you had better keep your mouth shut.
Civilized behavior usually begins with respecting another persons beliefs or values. If you are uncivil to the point of verbally assaulting someone’s core beliefs, then you shouldn’t be suprised if their response does your attack one better.
Well said, Smith.
Greg, we are not blaming the victim. We are saying he should have had common sense. He went out looking for a fight and then he was surprised when he found one.
What we are saying is, “Hey, Stupid, If you talk like a bitch, somebody is gonna slap you like a bitch.” And, guess what? It happened.
Gary
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47805 an interesting read, there are some that are starting to doubt his story.
If he was truly beaten up, I hope the idiots that did it are caught and get a long time in jail. If the attackers were truly Christians, they should have know what Christ himself said about “turn the other cheek”
#25 Smith
“If you can’t back it up with a good left hook, then maybe you had better keep your mouth shut.”
Yes exactly what Jesus taught!
Also that’s what it says in the American constitution!
I bet you’re reeeeeeal tough! So you can say whatever you want right?