Post details: Darwinism and popular culture: More on Church of England's recent bout of "false apology syndrome"

10/15/08

Permalinkby 05:59:13 pm, Categories: Commentary - OpEd, 335 words   English (CA)

Darwinism and popular culture: More on Church of England's recent bout of "false apology syndrome"

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Following up on the Brit media story about the Church of England's faux apology to Charles Darwin, I note where Jonathan Petre (Daily Mail, September 13, 2008) quotes

Former Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, said: 'It's absolutely ludicrous. Why don't we have the Italians apologising for Pontius Pilate?

'We've already apologised for slavery and for the Crusades. When is it all going to stop? It's insane and makes the Church of England look ridiculous.'

Yes it does, because as I observed earlier, there is no evidence that the Church of England ever wronged Darwin particularly.

On this phenomenon of "false apology syndrome", psychiatrist and essayist Theodore Dalrymple notes,

Guilt, by its very nature, ought to be connected to responsibility; it ought, moreover, to be in proportion to the wrongdoing that is its occasion. To assume a guilt greater than the responsibility warrants is actually a form of grandiosity or self-aggrandisement. The psychological mechanism seems to be something like this: "I feel very guilty, therefore I must be very important."

In some case, it is a substitute for importance, or for a loss of importance.

That diagnosis would certainly apply to the Church of England, which has suffered significant declines in attendance in recent decades.

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist:

Darwinism and popular culture: Why so many conservatives won't vote for Darwin

Darwinism and popular culture: Still not clear how mind emerges from mud

Darwinism and popular culture: Fish story evolves in pop science media

Morning coffee: Are you a redneck? A red diaper baby? And does it matter?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Permalink

Pingbacks:

No Pingbacks for this post yet...

The ID Report

January 2012
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
<<  <   >  >>
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Search

Linkblog

Links - Groups and Organizations

Links - Of General Interest

  • A Brief View of Time and Those That Live There

    Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio

    Permalink
  • A Quick Guide to Sequenced Genomes Permalink
  • ARN Related Web Links Permalink
  • Creation/Evolution Quotes

    Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.

    Permalink
  • CreationEvolutionDesign

    Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.

    Permalink
  • Darwinian Fairytales by David Stove

    Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"

    Permalink
  • ID The Future

    Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.

    Permalink
  • John Mark Reynolds Blog

    A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at
    Biola University.

    Permalink
  • NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Permalink

Misc

Syndicate this blog XML

What is RSS?

powered by
b2evolution