Creationists attack Mirecki

December 6, 2005

A couple of weeks ago, Prof. Paul Mirecki chairman of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Kansas, took a firm stand against intelligent-design creationism by including it in a class on “religious mythologies.” A week later, the course was cancelled after Mirecki mocked creationists on a website.

This week, creationists responded — with violence.

A professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was hospitalized Monday after what appeared to be a roadside beating.

University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said that the two men who beat him made references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring.

Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” the course was canceled last week at Mirecki’s request.

The class was added after the Kansas State Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.

“I didn’t know them,” Mirecki said of his assailants, “but I’m sure they knew me.”

Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World that he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck. After pulling over and getting out of his car, Mirecki said the thugs beat him on the head, shoulders, and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object.

I’ll have to check my Bible again for the part that justifies beating up professors who stand up for modern science. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.

I’ll have to check my Bible again for the part that justifies beating up professors who stand up for modern science. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.

Admittedly, I’m not much of a Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure you won’t find any support for that action in the New Testament, despite what defenders of this dispicable action may claim.

In all seriousness, this is terrible. Any chance it will actually be prosecuted as a hate crime by the FBI?

  • He got off lucky. In Texas his assailants would have dragged him behind their pickup with chains.

    And what the hell inspired to confront these wackos?

  • I have to assume that the shortage of abortion clinics to bomb in and around Lawrence Kansas has left these kind of whackos with little to do. It would be mice to think this would turn public opinion against ID advocates but I doubt anything will come of it. Hopefully they will catch these thugs. What do you expect of people who dismiss academic ideas and scientific principles in favor for fanatic fundamentialism.

  • I am glad that you posted this, CB. It deserves as much publicity as it can get. When disagreements turn to physical violence, the line has been crossed. I hope this creates a backlast against the fundies. They think they can intimate anyone who threatens their beliefs. Just like the Bushies in the White House.

  • My God. These people really are the American Taliban. They want a theocratic state, and they’ll willing to resort to violence to stifle dissent. This is abominable. This is the face of religious conservatism? Surely even mainstream religious conservative leaders, even the ones we normally characterize as wackos such as Pat Robertson, will stand up and denounce these people. What does the right-wing blogosphere have to say about this?

  • What does the right-wing blogosphere have to say about this?

    My hunch is they are ignoring it. Anyone willing to sacrifice themselves and check out the usual suspects and report back? I would if I could, but believe it or not, my company blocks the vast majority of blogs. (I’m just lucky that I get to view this superb one).

  • Further proof that “American Taliban” isn’t some slur when describing these morons, but rather a factual description of their worldview.

  • Kansas has always had its share of religious wackos, but generally their confrontational tactics haven’t included physical assault. Blocking abortion clinics? Yes. Picketing the funerals of AIDS victims? You bet. Picketing the funerals of U.S. casualties from Iraq because “God hates fags” and by extension the U.S.? Unfortunately, yes.

    This just doesn’t fit the local organized wackos’ MO. And Lawrence, Kansas really is an anomaly as the most “liberal” city in the state. I’m hoping this is just an isolated case of some overzealous evangelicals. I agree it needs greater public scrutiny, but I doubt it’s part of a larger, organized campaign of violence and intimidation by the wackos.

  • They haven’t even caught the guys that supposedly did this, how can you entitle your article “creationists attack?” More than a bit presumptive.

  • They haven’t even caught the guys that supposedly did this…

    Well, let’s see. A controversial professor is followed and beaten by men who referrenced his anti-creationism class during the attack. It doesn’t seem like much of a leap to me, but you be the judge.

  • What we are seeing is proof of evolution. These unevolved hominoids are posing as human beings, and they remain non-violent until their real identity is in danger of being exposed.

    Want a tipoff for who to look out for? Anyone who claims that they are not related to the other apes is a sure sign.

    The right-wing media knows all about this, and can speak their code. This is one reason that they get so insulted when one of their own is called “Chimpy.”

  • Rian brought up what I had been thinging about this incident. According to what I read, Michelle Malkin made the claim that conservatives police their own side and take care of extremists, and it’s us on the left who are unhinged and dangerous.

    So will the folks over at winger-central take the initiative and denounce this act of violence? My guess is that they will ignore it.

  • I am sure they will try to justify it with Jesus attacking the money-lenders in the temple, or perhaps David slaying Goliath.

    Poppy McCool got it right, presuming these thugs even though to rationalize their action. My guess is they had no more need (or ability) to rationalize than did the thugs who took out Matthew Shepard some years back.

    But the Bible is full of crap like this: Leviticus alone has all kinds of reasons for stoning people to death. The “Old Testmament” is full of righteous indignation, smoting and smiting, wrath of the Lord, etc. Yet you virtually never run into a Jewish thug in our society. Maybe this is why: You open any page of the Talmud at random. You’re as likely as not to find a great testiminoial to value of knowledge, science, wisdom.

    Somehow so-called Christians – with their “New Testament” providing endless examples of Christ’s compassion for those who suffer – seem to live only in a twisted version of the “Old Testament” (which they call the “good book”!), untempered by anything as intelligent and thoughtful and respectful of the human mind as the Talmud.

  • Lawrence does have a reputation for being a liberal bastion in the otherwise backward Kansas. After all, William S. Burroughs of “Naked Lunch” fame was a long time resident. However, the attack did not occur in Lawrence.

    Lt. Kari Wempe, a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, said a deputy was dispatched to Lawrence Memorial Hospital after receiving a call around 7 a.m. regarding a battery.

    She said Mirecki reported. Mirecki told the Journal-World he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck.

    It is not common for large state schools to be located in otherwise rural areas. Town-Gown tensions in such settings are a fact of life. My graduate alma mater is such an institution. It used to be that locals from the nearby county seat would regularly beat up college kids on the weekends. My guess is that it is done mostly out of resentment. With this existing tension in place almost anything can act as a catalyst for violence.

    Someone more familiar with the particulars of Kansas might be able say if Lawrence fits the general picture I have described.

  • I am not real sure how it happen but the quote in my last post was truncated and the emphasis misplaced. Here is the quote as I intended it.

    Lt. Kari Wempe, a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, said a deputy was dispatched to Lawrence Memorial Hospital after receiving a call around 7 a.m. regarding a battery.

    She said Mirecki reported he was attacked around 6:40 a.m. in rural Douglas County south of Lawrence. Mirecki told the Journal-World he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck.

  • Ed Stephan –

    Some thugs have refined their methods.

    Here in the US we have a congress that is scared to death of the thuggish Pro-Israel lobby which will kill their careers if they breathe even a word against the state of Israel. They make sure that Israel is supplied with American weapons to bomb apartments at will, kill innocent civilians at will, and take whatever land it wants by force.

    These thugs are very concerned with knowledge, science, and wisdom, but not ethics. And they routinely rationalize cold-blooded murder.

    Most American Jews do not support this agenda, but that doesn’t matter, because AIPAC gets their money and uses it the way it sees fit, regardless.

  • Thanks for the story CB. I wonder if this is a matter of the Return of the Rednecks where just plain old mean truck-driving Christian thugs beat Mirecki up for being “liberal”. Or is it maybe pseudo-thugs recruited from the Republican Party itself who took their white dress shirts off and put on a temporary blue collar. I wouldn’t put it past the Republicans to go “undercover” for payback and intimidation.

  • Rege,

    I think that’s true of most rural schools, at least it was of my alma mater. However, KU is the economic engine of Lawrence and Douglas County. Lawrence is the county seat and hardly a rural backwater. It’s a fairly large college town that’s within 30-45 minutes of either metropolitan Kansas City or Topeka. Douglas County has some rural areas, but it’s getting to be more and more like a suburb of Kansas City.

    I’ve lived in the area for most of my life, so I can’t imagine this being an escalation of organized hostilities on the part of local wackos.

    My home state of Missouri on the other hand …

  • I think that’s true of most rural schools, at least it was of my alma mater. However, KU is the economic engine of Lawrence and Douglas County. Lawrence is the county seat and hardly a rural backwater.

    This is also true of the college I went to in New Mexico: rural school, conservative small town, county seat, college is the economic engine. That didn’t stop the local young adults from hunting down lone college students on their way to the supermarket or laundromat and assaulting them. I agree with Rege, this behavior is a way of life in these locations.

  • The assault on Mirecki is like the Pat Robertson pronouncement of doom upon Dover, PA for rejecting creationist twaddle for science–it shows the real face of these self-styled “Christians”. They may shout the word “Jesus” every chance they get, but they’re strictly intolerant, ignorant, lame-ass cretins incapable of defending their blinkered view of the universe, and so turn to threats and violence. It’s the Old Testament via Natural Born Killers.

    Ignorance is ugly.

  • Sound like mirecki needs to take a long vacation at the Cuckoo’s Nest. He’s obviously delusional and very seriously mentally disturbed.

    mirecki’s two tailgating rednecks no more exist than Dan Rather’s, Kenneth. I recommend intensive drug therapy for mirecki, maybe even a lobotomy is in order.

  • Naaah. I also believe Mirecki’s outbursts need widespread publicity and plan to return here and remind the readers of Mirecki’s hijinks often. I hope you don’t mind.

    When he is shown to be a loudmouthed leftie fraud, like that Lady Professor in California who sprayed her own car with graffiti and then accused her white male Christian students, Mirecki is going to plead mental disorder or some other leftie defense to spreading hatred.

    Mirecki is just like white women of 100 years ago who blamed black men for rape in order to garner sympathy. Only he target is diffent now. Instead of blaming black men, the new leftie n*gger is Christians.

  • Edo asks:

    “any possibility it will be prosecuted as a hate crime by the FBI?”

    short answer: No.

    When Mirecki is found out to be a liar, no one is going to go after him for the hate crime of filing a false police report and trying to blame it on white Christian men in order o drum up hate an violence against Christians.

    For example, the California Lady Professor who did the same thing was only busted for insurance fraud (she damaged her own car) and filing a false police report (she blamed her white male Christians students). The fact that the colelge shut down for two or three days and anti-white Christian rallies were performed by the entire student body makes no difference.

    Of course, if he lied and accused black students of beating him, he would be arrested for a hate crime. White people really don’t matter, though, and particularly not men, and particularly not Christians, and particularly not that lesser sub-species called “fundamentalist”, because they are just plain evil.

    So, not to worry, Edo, your boy Mirecki will get off scot free for any hate crime rap.

  • I was just wondering if anybody has a link to the message that Mirecki wrote that started this whole thing.

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