I've been part of an ongoing conversation for a few weeks about different aspects of the man we know as Jesus. This week we talked about the controversy he caused.
He caused controversy when he spoke truth. Certain people he confronted with true statements did not like it because it threatened their control over people. They viewed his plain spoken, public statements as undermining their position. His true statements called into question their motives - rightly so based on the historical record.
Controversy wasn't the point - neither was it to be avoided. It was simply to be expected.
Two thousand years later, it's no different. People who deny absolute truth are actually advocating an absolute truth (that it does not exist). It's a circular argument made blindly to it's nature.
People that proclaim the tolerance imperative violate their own stand when they tolerate everything except that which threatens their way of thinking on any level.
Case in point: the movie "Expelled" is an expose of academia's hysterical opposition to Intelligent Design. In general, intellectuals and academics have a reputation of priding themselves on being open minded - except when someone with a theistic, and especially Christian world view, wants to enter the discussion.
Intelligent Design essentially asserts that biological systems contain information that cannot be explained by random or natural processes. DNA is a prime example. Intelligent Design concludes that design is inherent in the universe - thus some transcendent intelligence is behind our being here. Proponents officially stop short of prescribing the nature of the transcendent power to avoid straying outside the limits of science. Of course, they would tell you outside of the intelligent design debate that God is the source of the design. Hence the staunch opposition from secular academia.
An open minded look at the theory would have to acknowledge that there's something there. Information theory has been long established as legitimate (this is the theoretical basis for designing successful digital communication systems - it's why modems work, etc). No one questions that DNA contains the encoding that determines everything about a biological system (green eyes, 6' tall, brown hair, male, etc).
Perhaps the theory isn't perfect - I'm not an expert in biology or information theory - but to vehemently assert that it is fatally flawed and useless for discovering truth, to the point of firing professors and banning the subject from discussion reminds me of a famous Shakespeare quote: "Me thinks the lady doth protest too much..."
When real threats emerge, stop at nothing to discredit, punish and eliminate honest discussion. Machiavelli would be proud of many of our universities...
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