I get lots of hate mail, but it’s actually not that often that I’m cc’ed complaints sent to my acting chancellor and the university PR person. Since he’s willing to share, so am I…so here’s Mr Daryl Schulz’s defense of free speech:
I have known a few people through the years that have gone to UM Morris and thought it to be a reputable institution affiliated with the University of Minnesota. But you can’t be serious about being proud of one of your Associate Professor’s blog winning an award when it contains such hate towards religion or faith of any type (http://www.morris.umn.edu/webbin/ummnews/view.php?newsID=319). To put it on the splash page of your university website is not helping your image to being open minded and fair to all types of students whether Christian or otherwise. His frequent mocking and ridicule of faith in anything other than science is embarrassing for him as a professor but especially so for you as a tax payer supported branch of the University of Minnesota. Does your school support and advertise blogs of Christian, Muslim, or Jewish proponents? Would your school be proud if one of your staff admitted to being hard on Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists or Atheists, despising their beliefs and making mock of their nonsensical ideas and backwards social agenda as Mr. Myers admits to below in the blog headline below regarding Christianity?
His ideas are his own whether I agree with them or not and free speech is a constitutional right. But I’m embarrassed by this endorsement by your school for several reasons and thankfully I am not an alumnus.. I will also be sure my children and others who ask will be directed to fully research your institution fully to be clear on how their beliefs are accepted and treated by representatives. I am appalled my tax dollars are being used to advertise his hatred.
Sincerely,
Daryl Schulz
He also provides a link to this fine example of my perfidy. Just a hint to those making future attempts to screw with my employer’s heads: I don’t recommend picking a criticism of Kent Hovind as an example. Anyone with half a brain, and the people working here are actually pretty smart, aren’t going to be too dazzled by someone who is unhappy that a biologist thinks a dishonest creationist huckster is an embarrassing representative of Christianity.
My university does not endorse what I say here. I don’t think Mr Shulz quite understands the concept of free speech if he thinks it means you only acknowledge the existence of one side of an argument; thinking that universities will back away from criticism of religion because some guy feels the existence of an atheist on campus makes the place unsuitable for his children is rather silly. That’s going to narrow their field of prospective educational institutions to lots of third rate bible colleges…which is, of course, Mr Schulz’s choice.
By the way, the majority of students here are Christian. I don’t think I’ve ever had a single student complain that I discriminate against them on the basis of their religion—they’re usually more interested in complaining about the brutality of my exams.
Which reminds me that I have to finish grading one of those brutal exams today…
All animals have free speech, but some animals’ speech is freer than others.
It’s a good thing he will make sure that others fully research your institution fully. It’s a shame he didn’t apply the same technique to his criticism of you.
Hey, your acting chancellor has a demanding job, so it’s nice to have someone provide him with a good laugh now and then to help him relax.
Gotta admit, I’m fascinated by the free speech philosophy of “I support to the death your right to say anything, but I’ll encourage your employers to pretend you don’t exist and will attempt to starve your livelihood by encouraging friends and family to boycott your place of business.”
Kinda reminds me of this…:
“Well, I’m going to be swinging my arms like this, and if any part of you should happen to get in the way, that’s YOUR problem!”
…..aaaannnd I can’t find a video clip of that quote. Bummer. And the search turned up an inexplicably high amount of apparent porn.
Mr. Schulz,
Please understand this: if you are a church-goer in the US, you are more than likely attending services alongside atheists. Atheists, who enjoy the social aspect of gatherings with others, but who, like most of those claiming to be believers, don’t believe any of it. Atheists, who must work to keep up appearances due to extreme intolerance on the part of the faithful. Atheists, who are not permitted by the faithful to follow their own spiritual, albeit non-supernatural, path to personal emotional fulfillment. And, some atheists, who see themselves serving as guides to those wanting to know the way out of the bizarre religious psychological quagmire. And, some atheists – that’s right, NO GOD, NO MIRACLES and NO DIVINE JESUS – , like Rev. Harry Cook(Christian, Episcopelian, see http://www.harrytcook.com) and Rabbi Sherwin Wine(Jewish Secular Humanist) lead the congregations in non-theistic fellowship.
Atheists are part of everyone’s daily lives. They are chefs, doctors, models, novelists, lawyers, teachers, clergymen, university professors, and plumbers – every walk of life. Tens of millions of Americans are atheist, just as they were born, 100 percent non-supernatural. Atheists are an integral part of the social fabric and objective data indicates that non-belief makes for a better social structure.
Here in the intensely religious USA, we are the heaviest consumers of psychoactive pharmaceuticals in the world, we have the highest alcoholism rate, most gun violence, the most domestic violence, and, surprise, surprise, American Christians are less happy than even many of the poorest African countries. Clearly, the religion does not work. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005), the healthiest, and happiest countries are Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, Iceland and the United Kingdom. Note the US is absent from the list. The determination was made from measures of life expectancy, per capita income, adult literacy, educational attainment, infant mortality, homicide rate, and gender equality. What do they have in common? Those countries have the lowest religious participation on the planet. Non-belief is good for people, countries, and human society in general. The countries worst off on the UN report are – you guessed it! – the most religiously adherent. Mr. Schulz, you ask for respect for something which is obviously not beneficial to your fellow man. Why is that?
So, Mr. Schulz, please learn and think before you exercise the free speech you would deny PZ Myers. There are millions of us proud, respectable atheists out here. You work, play, and quite likely attend church services with atheists. But, don’t be afraid, the facts from the UN Report clearly bear it out: atheism and atheists are good for you.
Atheists make the world a better place.
Russ
Ah, same old same old. “You have freedom of speech in this country–so shut up! Show some respect!” Yadda, yadda. Why is disparaging religion an “embarrassment?” We have President Georgie Bush puppy, exorting us to “pray that there are no hurricanes” this year. Now, there’s an embarrassment!
PZ, I hear what Daryl is saying: less mockery, more raillery (raillery RAY-luh-ree, noun: 1. Good-humored banter or teasing. 2. An instance of good-humored teasing; a jest.)
Hovind, old man, was there a sale on PowerPoint slides or something? Hee-hee. Could you put slide number 584 up again, I was looking away for a moment. Nudge-nudge. That wasn’t the one where you said something nice about science, was it? Tee-hee.
Atheists have a backwards social agenda? Another memo I missed. I must have been busy reading Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby, ISBN 0805077766.
I must confess a lingering suspicion of any biologist who specialized in invertebrates. My only college C was in invertebrate zoology, and it soon became clear that that was like taking a course in “History, except for 20th century Brasil.” I remember quite well the lab final. At one station there was a microscope. I peered down it, and was quite elated that I recognized the crab eggs in its view. There are some small features that distinguish crab eggs from the eggs of most other animals, and it signalled the depths of my hard study that I recognized them as such. I pulled my eye from the scope to take a quick glance at the question on the 3×5 card, which I was certain would read “what are these”? Instead, it read: “These are crab eggs. What is the species of crab?”
Now, it takes a great deal of perfidy for a professor to require that his students not only to recognize crab eggs, but to know their lineage. It’s pretty easy to distinguish amongst a variety of crabs once they are grown, and have their shells and claws and other distinguishing features. As eggs, they are pretty much all of a sameness.
I hope PZ would never ask such a sneaky question on one of his exams.
Clearly, the religion does not work. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005), the healthiest, and happiest countries are Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, Iceland and the United Kingdom. Note the US is absent from the list. The determination was made from measures of life expectancy, per capita income, adult literacy, educational attainment, infant mortality, homicide rate, and gender equality. What do they have in common? Those countries have the lowest religious participation on the planet. Non-belief is good for people, countries, and human society in general.
Attention: Correlation does not prove causation. You wish to note a coincidence that may indicate causality? Fine. But to lay all that on the door of religion is quite a stretch, scientifically speaking.
objective data indicates that non-belief makes for a better social structure
I agree with the sentiment, but this is a post hoc fallacy. My personal suspicion is that both conditions – better social structure and less religion – follow directly from better education. Here in the UK, we get detailed exposure to at least 4 religions in secondary school (it’s usually the Abrahamic ones plus either Buddhism, Sikhism or Hinduism). Despite being nominally a Christian nation we’ve got a comparatively low church attendance, and I suspect that the education system is why. It’s hard to claim that Christianity is special when you realise that, to a large proportion of the world, it’s pretty much just a stopping point on the road from Judaism to Islam.
I just hope you have an administration like ours (Harvey Perlman of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln is a rock on free speech and academic freedom) and not U. Kansas’s, which caved shamefully on the Paul Mirecki affair.
Indeed, it strikes me as at least as likely that the reverse relationship is true: that hardship causes religion. One might even be prepared to make the case that they feed each other, which would explain a lot. Positive feedback loops suck.
Compass, Corkscrew,
Thanks for pointing out my inappropriate use of the data. Rather than broadly implying causality, I should have settled for pointing out that non-belief meshes well with the most desirable aims of a society, maintaining the health and general welfare of its people.
Thanks, again, for the peer review.
Russ
Mr. Daryl Shultz,
Universities have been institutions of forward and free thinking since their inception. The freedom that university professors enjoy to publish new and controversial ideas while being relatively free from censorship or risk of reprisal by the University’s administration lies at the very core of intellectual advancement. All this is aside from the fact that Dr. Myers’ blog has nothing to do with UofM.
Mr. Shultz, BILLIONS of your tax dollars are finding their way directly into senators’ and congressmen’s pockets every year on pork-barrel legislation and you’ve chosen to cry out for the tax dollars used to type a message on a University website? Clearly your zeal to right the wrongs of society would be better invested elsewhere.
Halfjack,
Your “Indeed, it strikes me as at least as likely that the reverse relationship is true: that hardship causes religion” makes a great point.
If hardship does cause religion (my personal experience and research convince me that it does) then, the popularity of religion in the US implies big hardship for US citizens, which is, of course, actually observed. The non-reality shows like FOX News, don’t show it, but it’s bad and destined to get worse. Then, your positive feedback loop will induce another religious growth spurt.
Someone else noted TypeKey isn’t working as it’s meant to…same for me, no matter where I’m posting from or what browser.
Anyway, regarding this:
“All this is aside from the fact that Dr. Myers’ blog has nothing to do with UofM.”
Maybe a minor point, but I wouldn’t say that’s technically true if UofM is saying “hey, lookie at the cool award one of our professor’s blogs won!” It implies the university is proud of him (no?) Not that this changes anything about the university’s policy of free speech.
Gotta admit, I’m fascinated by the free speech philosophy of “I support to the death your right to say anything, but I’ll encourage your employers to pretend you don’t exist and will attempt to starve your livelihood by encouraging friends and family to boycott your place of business.”
You can’t think of any speech that falls in between “shouldn’t be strongly discouraged” and “should get you arrested”? Try brainstorming for a few minutes; I suggest starting with various degrees of racism to make it easy.
Corkscrew makes an interesting point about the relative lack of interest in religion in the UK. I’m sure that compulsory religious education has something to do with it. Based on my memory of “scripture,” (way before anything more than Judaism and Christianity was on the menu), either it was taught badly and was so agonizingly boring that you never wanted to have anything to do with it again; or when it was taught well, it was actually quite interesting to engage in philosophical, ethical and symbolic discussions whose effect (never mind the intent) did not seem to me to be magnifying the faith so much as broadening the mind. Of course, I was pretty atheistic early on, so maybe that was just me.. but then again, those ol’ low church attendance numbers do set one thinking…..
P.S. Another strange effect of British-style religious education that I’ve noticed is that I actually know more about the contents of the Bible than my true-believing students, who often don’t appear to know much about it at all.
I don’t think Mr Shulz quite understands the concept of free speech if he thinks it means you only acknowledge the existence of one side of an argument; thinking that universities will back away from criticism of religion because some guy feels the existence of an atheist on campus makes the place unsuitable for his children is rather silly.
A few thoughts of mine.
sir_russ:
“the popularity of religion in the US implies big hardship for US citizens, which is, of course, actually observed.”
I imagine the “hardship” need merely to be a “perceived” hardship as opposed to an actual hardship: hence the “war on Christmas,” the “persecution” of christians etc. These perceived and yet imaginary “hardships” are part of the positive feedback that keeps religion strong in the U.S.
Good point, dogscratcher. I personally despise the victim culture. Martyrdom fantasies are all well and good, but not when they interfere with reality.
Oh, and can you get me behind the ears?
WHAT? WHAT???
No FBI, No Homeland Security Alert?
Sorry PZ, I just found out about this. Contact me on your free phone call. I will try to, NO, I will get you off with only five to ten with good behavior!
I want to put my fist through a wall every time someone conflates an opinion with active participation in oppresion. Schulz would have your boss and his religious peers believe in this insipid idea of a conspiracy of anti-religion. AGAIN: where is the proof of this pervasive, society-wide movement, especially in the face of such a high percentage of religious participants?
Schulz seems to be alluding that you are making more serious remarks than you are, the common argumentative trait that is part and parcel of hard-right conservatism.
Besides, has Mr. Schulz not read up on Mr. Hovind and his legal troubles? Seems to me he could care less to trouble himself to recognize the frauds that he seems happy to have represent him.
“thought it to be a reputable institution affiliated with the University of Minnesota”
Myself, I’ve also thought Morris to be a flamboyant instituion associated with the University of Djibouti.
Maybe we’re both right?
“Good point, dogscratcher. I personally despise the victim culture. Martyrdom fantasies are all well and good, but not when they interfere with reality.”
Exactly. This is what the crazy, criminal terrorist Muslim factions in the Middle East have absolutely thrived on for decades. They have fostered a notion of oppression in the absolute, and doomed not only their followers, but entire legions of innocents.
If popular Christianity truly seeks to do the same, then I wholly divest myself of ever having been part of the Church in the past, and refuse to consider myself part of their cause. I would hope they’d renounce the name “Christianity” too, but I doubt that would happen.
It all comes back to taking a singular book at absolute literal face value. I don’t need to be part of a society that uses ONE BOOK as its entire outlook on life and interpersonal relationships, and goes nuts any time someone criticizes it.
Actually, I wasn’t keen on the introduction to that post either. I thought it seemed to be implying that all Christians have the same “nonsensical ideas and backwards social agenda”, or that they all share the exact beliefs of Kent Hovind (who is indeed a fool).
Just a hint to those making future attempts to screw with my employer’s heads: I don’t recommend picking a criticism of Kent Hovind as an example.
Lol, that is hilarious. Maybe Mr. Schulz doesn’t like Hee Haw or something. “It was like watching Bob Hope –I half-expected Bing to show up.” There, all better now.
Bronze Dog:
“Oh, and can you get me behind the ears?”
As long as no sexual overtones are implied, I think I can accomodate you.
Thanks, dogscratcher.
BlueIndependant:
My room would been in great need of spackle and plaster if I didn’t have my overpowered anti-violence inhibitions. (When I get angry, the only thing I can really attack is the air.)
I don’t have kids, but If I did, I’d definately encourage them to attend morris, or a school like it.
I would encourage my kids to take classes that interested them and be prepared to do what you encourage all your readers to do: THINK!
Kudo’s Dr. Myers, and if any of the school administrators read this blog: This is a professor you need to be proud of!
dogscratcher:
“I imagine the “hardship” need merely to be a “perceived” hardship as opposed to an actual hardship”
I do think the rise in fundamentalism in the South was, at least in part, due to a very real hardship that came with the loss of jobs. The churches there were ready to pick up the people in the same way that the Madrasses in Pakistan were ready; if I feed you and tell you that you are still worthwhile, then you will espouse my teachings. The loss of a job and the very real worry, for family especially, that comes with it, is a powerful force.
Another strange effect of British-style religious education that I’ve noticed is that I actually know more about the contents of the Bible than my true-believing students, who often don’t appear to know much about it at all.
That seems to be a common theme with a lot of atheists. I attended a Christian youth club for 7 years, and I was always the one discussing theology with the leaders when the others were off playing football.
I remember when they had a guest speaker in to discuss the bacterial flagellum, just when I’d spent all week reading about evolution. Great memories.
Clare,
Exactly. The more I learned about the Bible, the less credible its contents became for me. That’s why I’m outta there. And good riddance.
All they really WANT you to learn about Christianity, you can learn in five minutes, which is perfect for our ADD society. So maybe public universities should be allowed to hold classes about ONLY the dark side of the Bible.
“Week one: Learn how racists used the story of Noah to rationalize slavery.”
And so on.
PZ the fact that they are complaining means you are getting to them.
Why are they reading such a godless blog? Where is thier faith?
I would commend you on having a real backbone, but that might not be the highest of compliments to one who likes invertebrates
TommyG,
I didn’t mean to imply that no hardships faced by American christians are real, merely that they don’t have to be real to feed back and reinforce religiousity. I think your point is a good one, but not relevant to mine.
But times have been tough in other countries too: The British especially have gone through some very bad economic times and it doesn’t seem to have made them more religious. Do you suppose that in more socialized countries the helping role of the church is taken on by the government and so the “hardship” doesn’t bolster religiousity?
Douglas Rushkoff in his blog:
I have attended UM Morris and know it to be a reputable institution. You can be seriously proud of one of your Associate Professor’s blog winning an award because it contains such great educational content as well as important critisisms of the dangers of blind faith. (http://www.morris.umn.edu/webbin/ummnews/view.php?newsID=319).
To put it on the splash page of your university website is helping your image of being progressive and dedicated to higher education. His frequent warnings of charlatans is a credit to him as a professor and especially so for you as a student tuition supported branch of the University of Minnesota. Your school also recognizes proponents with many other views. Your school should be proud if all your staff are so comitted to being educators for all people, weeding out misinformation as Mr. Myers does below in the blog headline… uh below regarding Christianity.
His ideas are his own whether I agree with them or not and free speech is a constitutional right. I’m pleased with your school for several reasons and thankfully I am an alumnus. I will also be sure my children and others who ask will be directed to fully research your institution, uh, fully to be clear on how their beliefs are accepted, but not catered to by representatives. I am appalled nearly 0 of my tax dollars are being used to promote great schools like Morris.
Sincerely,
Martha
Hey Daryl, what’s free speech to you?
Does it mean any fool with a view
Gets religion’s free pass…
Above Criticism
If hardship does cause religion (my personal experience and research convince me that it does)
Funny, my personal experience and observation is that hardship is just fecking hardship. That which does not kill me just hurts like a bastid.
the popularity of religion in the US implies big hardship for US citizens, which is, of course, actually observed
Compared to *what* !?
They lead pretty sugar-coated lives compared to a lot of the world.
And, BTW, TypeKey is a pustule on a diseased weasel’s buttocks.
If everyone were really as concerned as Schulz seems to be about where tax dollars are spent, we’d be a much better country. As for the rest of the letter, Schulz is exercising free speech too. Everyone on this blog is doing so courtesy PZ Myers. It seems a pleasant time is being had by all, so I hope no one is really complaining.
Clare: It has been long my view that actually seriously reading both the bible (or whatever document one claims to be at the basis of one’s own religion) and similar documents from other groups can be very “enlightening”. It is absolutely crucial, however, that this be done to read it all (within a sizable chunk). Our religious education (i.e. religous study as study of culture) didn’t do this, and thus wasn’t as effective. In fact, one of the things we did inmy grade 7 class was to read these sanitized retellings of some of the OT stuff (Abraham and co.) so people thought they were learning about the common “monotheistic core”, but were missing a lot of the stuff. (In fact, I realize in retrospect how Christian-focused it really was, since the 603 other non-“ten commandments” were completely downplayed in that stuff.)