Militant Progressives? – Dialectic Two Step

Estimated reading time: 9 minute(s)

Question:   At what point did progressives end up deciding that a “free” society means people on the “right” (aka “Christians”) are no longer even allowed to have a platform to speak anymore?



Progressives have decided that debate over “Global Warming” is over, they are not open to debating it, and anyone who denies it is a blooming idiot
Progressives are hostile toward any other theory of human origins being taught at the University level other than Darwin evolution, the debate is over they say

The more I think about it, the more I realized how much progressives remind me of a militant army.

A professor from Boston College recently wrote to me on the subject and said that while it is true that the majority of colleges reject anyone who teaches against value free research, there are in fact a growing number of professors who are joining the ranks of those who reject positivism and value free research.

Response:  There is a significant difference between value free teaching and truth free teaching. The same applies to research.  We should avoid prolonging the natural life span of an idea under the guise of protecting the free exchange of ideas.  Clinging to a creationist theory of human origins and climate denial fit neatly into the realm of logical fallacies.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam – keep arguing because you’ve not been proven false (even though the alternative has been proven true)
Argumentum ad infinitum – keep arguing despite the fact that there is no evidence for your position
Argumentum ex silentio – keep arguing because there is a lack of evidence for your position
Onus probandi – shifting the burden of proving your theory false (non-creationists somehow need to prove creationism is false, climate change deniers offer little or no credible science to disprove climate change, they’ve simply shifted to objecting to fixing it)

There is a strong foundation for the rejection of these positions. If there is prejudice, it is a prejudice towards the facts.

It is the responsible thing for a university that claims to prepare a student for and supply meaningful research to the world, to have a heavy bias towards supportable theories and fields of study. As Rob Corddry proclaimed in 2004 – “The facts have a well-known liberal bias”.

History has shown that often the cure for bad ideas is the passing of those who hold them. I wish it weren’t so, but so it is.The past 200 years have offered many ups and downs, but in the area of retiring bad ideas, science has been highly effective.

Who’s Loosing?

There is a perception that Christianity has lost very heavily in this area. But remember, this is only from the perspective of a literal interpretation of the Bible. This is a particularly American phenomenon and something I would call made up theology.

Many theologians (e.g. Aquinas) moved past those interpretations hundreds of years ago. I encourage those who rely on the Bible for science quality data, consider moving on. That well is dry. Defending literalism by calling so called progressives militant because they reject unsupportable ideas sourced from made up theology seems pretty disingenuous.

Dialectic Two-Step  is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio

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