Monday, February 12, 2007

3482 Can you believe Scripture and be a scientist?

Sure. But it makes the academics awfully mad if Christians are more liberal (in the true sense of the word) than they are, that Christians will study and discuss and write about ideas and theories that are in conflict with their own, but academics can't.

This young man's research is impeccable. But some find these concepts "imponderable." He is able to describe events that happened 10 million years ago, but personally believes the earth is 10,000 years old. So do you have to believe in warlocks and witches to read Harry Potter?

"May a secular university deny otherwise qualified students a degree because of their religion? Can a student produce intellectually honest work that contradicts deeply held beliefs? Should it be obligatory (or forbidden) for universities to consider how students will use the degrees they earn?"

And they claim it isn't discrimination. Can you believe they're debating whether to even admit committed Christians who don't follow the party line to advanced degree programs? "Graduate admissions committees were entitled to consider the difficulties that would arise from admitting a doctoral candidate with views "so at variance with what we consider standard science." She [Eugenie C. Scott] said such students "would require so much remedial instruction it would not be worth my time." Remedial instruction? What makes her think she has to brainwash graduate students? Will religious questions be part of the college interview now? She's right up there with the "some of my best friends are black" folk who want Christians in the back of the academic bus.

2 comments:

JAM said...

When I was in engineering school at Louisiana Tech in the early/mid 1990s, I had to take a class called Dynamics. The classroom assigned to the instructor of this class was used in the previous hour by a biology class. We often had to wait for them to leave the class so we could enter.

I saw an aquaintance I knew to be a Christian, a girl who was in the biology class, and asked her about the text, the title of which upset me.

The only required text for this class was "Evolution And The Myth Of Creationism" by Tim Berra. She was struggling in the class, but it was required by her major.

The book is basically a set of questions and answers on how to refute, point by point, questions raised by Christians who have the audacity to believe in Creationism as opposed to evolution.

And that was in Louisiana, which is pretty much backwards with regards to being up-to-date and modern.

Norma said...

Several years ago at Ohio State the name of the Department of Biological Sciences was changed to Department of Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology. Catch 'em at the door and block.

Your example shows LA is right up at the top with the big guys on this stuff.