5 ms·
I agree with the jist of what is said by the president, but while reading this I felt the religious intonations were a bit strong and the article not object eno
by myth_buster 11y ago
I agree with the jist of what is said by the president, but while reading this I felt the religious intonations were a bit strong and the article not object enough. Reading your comment does provide correlation to the strong religious sentiments.
Also their mission statement:
As an evangelical Christian university of The Wesleyan Church, Oklahoma
Wesleyan University models a way of thought, a way of life, and a way of
faith. It is a place of serious study, honest questions, and critical
engagement, all in the context of a liberal arts community that honors the
Primacy of Jesus Christ, the Priority of Scripture, the Pursuit of Truth, and
the Practice of Wisdom.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoThanks for posting the Mission Statement. Got me thinking a little bit more about their "values" so I was able to quickly dredge up a course catalog. Why? I wondered what their take on Biology would be - you know, that whole Evolution thing. To wit: Biology Major — Students will demonstrate the following outcomes, upon completion of the Biology degree offered by the School of Arts and Sciences: 1. A sound basic understanding of the chemistry of life. 2. A sound basic understanding of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure and function. 3. A fundamental knowledge of Classical, Molecular, and Population genetics. 4. A sound basic understanding of the proposed mechanisms of evolution and understanding of Creation. 5. A sound basic understanding of the structure and function in plants and animals. 6. A sound basic understanding of ecology. 7. Integration of the Biblical Principles into life sciences. Needless to say, I'm not surprised by the "framing" of Evolution and, essentially, equivocating its merit with, um, Biblical Creationism.
- joeclark77 11y agoIt doesn't contain the word "Creationism". The word "Creation" simply means "the universe", i.e. that which is created.
- jccc 11y agoFair enough. What then does "Integration of the Biblical Principles into life sciences" mean?
- 6stringmerc 11y agoNo, it's not that blatant, as I mention elsewhere. However, from my understanding of Evolution, there is no associated implication with respect to the origin of life. Thus, it's a specious pairing of concepts, further anchored by the last point regarding "Biblical Principles" because taking the good book literally means the 6 day Creation of Genesis doesn't leave any room for Evolution.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoFWIW it's impossible to take the Creation in Genesis literally, because there are two different Creation stories in Genesis.
- splawn 11y agoThe word "Creation" only means "the universe" in the context of Creationism... so ,assuming you are correct about its meaning, the word "Creationism" isn't actually necessary to show that the sentence was created by a creationist.
- joeclark77 11y agoNo, pretty much any Christian of any denomination understands Creation to mean "all that is created by God", i.e. the whole universe and all therein. The Catholic church, by far the largest "denomination", does not teach young-earth creationism, and I doubt that belief is shared by any more than a small minority even of Protestants. Perhaps they join the concepts because they know that the opponents of their faith often try to falsely imply that theories of evolution are proofs of atheism.
- splawn 11y agoMy apologies.. I lumped "god-driven evolution" in with creationism. Where I live most christians don't accept evolution and I forget that in other parts of the world there can be more nuisance. I have never actually heard that evolution is proof of no god, only that god isn't necessary for evolution to work which seems like a different thing to me. In fact wrt "proof", the point I am more familiar with is that god is an unfalsifiable concept which means can't be proved or disproved (which is why faith is required). However, I am sure there is a whole spectrum of quality when it comes to arguments against theology just like there is with anything else.
- nightspirit 11y agoThis looks like they are actually jettisoning Biblical Creationism and trying to explain the act of "Creation" in terms of evolutionary processes. I'm under impression that such is also the official stance of the major "mainstream" churches today.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoNot to me, I think it looks like "proposed" is a side-stepping phrasing that replaces a perfectly reasonable one like "established" because, at the core, Evolution does not cross-pollenate with Creation. It's simply a scientific observation codified into an accepted understanding of nature. To juxtapose the two - Evolution and Creation - is inherently suspect.
- jccc 11y agoThe word "proposed" elides quite a bit. It seems clear that they are "teaching the controversy," which is just another way of teaching creationism.
- MisterBastahrd 11y agoSerious study and honest questions are antithetical to fundamentalism.