monday, march 3,1980
page 4
daily nebrrskan
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MUN Krugerrand tmrnmbout should heprmised
ASUN not only restored its credibility with its
recent reversal of the Krugerrand donation, but it
did so with a flair of courage that has been
needed for quite some time on the UNL campus.
With debate from last Wednesday including
whether senators were willing to admit and
. correct their past mistake, the 18-5-1 outcome to
accept the donation did more than just bring
ridicule from isolated corners of campus. It
swelled the pride of many that our student
government is indeed representative of the UNL
student body.
For too long, politicians have been under the
mistaken impression that admission of error is
suicidal. It doesn't quite ring true that an
"honest" politician is a "stupid" politician.
If it does, then there's something wrong with
the democratic system.
From the Watergate era should come an
important lesson for all-concealment or justifi
cation of error is wrong.
ASUN elections are little more than a week
away. With them will come a new representative
body with new goals and situations with which to
deal. But that is even more reason to praise our
outgoing senate for dealing with its own mistake,
rather than let the 1980-8 1 senate inherit the
APU-backed Krugerrand resolution. ,
Emotionalism is an animal that carf affect even
the most weathered of political forces. A quick
glance at the many-faceted approach of Jimmy
Carter toward the Iranian crisis should illustrate
that the president is only one man trying to act in
the best interests of the nation.
Jt may be hard to act in the best interests of
constituents. But what is even harder is to admit
error and correct the situation to the satisfaction
nfthnf hfinf served.
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The present members ot ine Associatea
Students of the University of Nebraska have
recently accomplished this on a highly emotional
issue.
It is our prediction that any ridicule from the
student body will soon turn to praise. .
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Thft nresent members Ot tfie ASSOCiaiea J
n
As the ASUN elections draw near, each
concerned student at UNL is faced with a
choice: a) re-electing existing policies and
the existing level of effectiveness of the
present ASUN; and b) voting for change
botk in ASUN and at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
We at Let Students Dominate have de
fined a student as one who pursues know
ledge as an intrinsic good. Also, we believe
that UNL exists only for the pursuit of
knowledge. Working from these and nine
other similar assumptions, LSD construct
ed a logical, rational and workable plat
form. In the last three weeks we have camp,
aigned vigorously to inform students as to
our goals and beliefs. Naturally , there have
been people offended by these ideas.
Whenever a person or aggregate of persons
makes a statement of consequence (i.e.
verbalized belief dealing with a problem
area), certain persons will be opposed to
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ideas. Bv Liz Austin ' Opinions differ as to whetl
these ideas.
Let Students Dominate has never hesi
tated io formulate an opinion based upon
facts and reason dealing with problems at
UNL. We did not begin this campaign to
please everyone; rather we set out to im
prove the university. Wouldn't it be nice if
all other parties had also?
Speaking of tl)e other parties, LSD
would like to commend La Raza Unida on
its platform, We at LSD are in favor of all
proposals except the abolition of ASUN
made by La Raza Unida. This is due to the
fact that we believe an ASUN-Faculty Sen
ate coalition would serve to govern UNL
more effectively than the Board of
Regents. "
A most noticeable overlap of proposals
exists between the La Raza Unida and the
LSD platforms. We urge all students to
carefully consider these two parties at the
polls.
Continued on Page 5
By Liz Austin
Freedom of the press is a fundamental
right of all American newspapers, including
the Daily Nebraskan.
This time -honored right is founded in
the U.S Constitution and allows news
papers to print stories no matter how dist
urbing to the established authority.
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With the First Amendment as its armor,
newspapers protect the people's right to
know. .' ' X; . ;
The armor doesn't always hold strong,
however, The courts, on numerous occas
ions, have slapped restraining orders on
newspapers, attempting to prevent them
from printing a certain story.
ODinions differ as to whether these re-
straints and punishments are justified. Most
newspeople would agree they aren't,
But what if the press does abuse its free
dom? The answers, of course, would have
to take into consideration the extent of the
abuse.
It obviously would not do to take away
freedom of the press since it is a funda
mental right of democracy.
Even if the press breaches this freedom,
it still is the most effective watchdog.
But that doesn't answer what is to be
done when this watchdog oversteps its
boundaries and needs to be sent to the dog
house, . Remedies often are sought through the
court system , which may be the best answ
er for major mistakes.
However for mistakes on a similar scale,
the answer is not so easy, There may be no
real answer but sometimes something more
than an apology is needed.
Graduate: Josh not necessarily the gospel truth
We have heard in recent days from
various sources that Josh McDowell is both
"scholarly" and "intellectual" in his pre-,
sentation of certain kinds of ""evidence that
demands a verdict." But if Josh McDowell
is a biblical scholar then by all accounts
Adolf Hitler must be - classified as a
Talmudic one. For such a claim about the
nature of McDowell's "scholarship" can be
made only by a person who has not the
slightest notion of what scholarship is and
whose criterion of "evidence" is so low as
to defy description.
If Josh McDowell's claim to scholarship
rests on the "evidence" he presents in such
publications as Evidence That Demands a
Verdict, then let me be the first to deny
him a pretense of being a scholar, for the
evidence he presents therein will never
stand up in . any court where even a
modicum of appreciation exists for real
scientific methodology and historical re
search. All his evidence amounts to is the
presentation of certain "facts" drawn from
biblical writings which he supports with
such evidence as how many times the pass
age appears in the Bible and a list of writers
who have commented on the particular
passage. Now this kind of scissors-and-paste
syncretism could pass for evidence and
scholarship in the 1 1th century but not to
day. Very few people today would accept
such scholastic verbiage as evidence. Hence,
certain fallacies which the student of
elementary logic learns to avoid after the
first week of classes are used by McDowell
to produce an opus of considerable size.
Even more dangerous for the authenti
city of his evidence are McDowell's appeals
to history and church history in particular.
Any scholar who uses such an appeal has to
realize from the outset that all history is an
autopsy of sorts, and as with all autopsies
it assumes the death of the subject under
investigation. The history of Christianity
clearly demonstrates that the pallor of
death has been on its cheeks at least since
200 A.D. What scanty evidence McDowell
presents shows an appalling ignorance of
the results of historical and scientific re
search into the Bible. But the history of
the .church, "that hotchpotch of error and
violence" as Goethe called it, is instructive
even if not in the way McDowell imagines.
We know that, to use a biblical metaphor,
a "tree is known by its fruits." The bounti
ful harvest this tree has produced in the
last 2500 years is bitter indeed and
characterized by lies, duplicities, and self
deceptions. For the history of the church is
its story as a slave-owner, as a persecutor of
innocent " victims-including pagans, Jews,
and its own doctrinal heretics-, its de
famation of women and sexuality, its ob
scurantism and obfuscation in matters of
science and ,in general its blood-soaked
record of misery and intolerance. Evidence
can be drawn from the history of this faith
but perhaps hot the kinds of evidence Josh
McDowell imagines. I really doubt that Mc
Dowell would be so willing to appeal to
history for his evidence if he were aware,
to use the Swiss church historian, Franz
Overbeck's words, that "the history of the
church is the best school of atheism possi
ble." Theology's use of historical and
scientific methodologies is ironic in
another sense. Christianity and its theology
have never evolved or contributed to the
development of any of the natural and hu
man sciences in terms of methods or
scholarship. In this sense they" have always
appropriated the methodologies of these
disciplines and acted as parasites at the rich
banquet tables which others have set. This
is not an insignificant point to those of us
who have labored in behalf of real scholar
ship. We know that not all is scholarly
which uses the adjective just as all are not
Christian who choose to use the name. The
fate of such inquirers as Giordano Bruno,
Michael Servetus, John of Oldenbarneveldt,
the Albigensians and the victims of the St,
Bartholomew's Day Massacre all are histori
cal proof that not only does theology have
no need for evidence but actually works
against the seekers after it. Theologians
have always been the "Figaros of Christ
ianity" and Josh McDowell is no different,
.Those who determine the religious
policy of this university will soon be called
on to amend or abolish the charters of
certain religious groups here on campus.
What they must decide is whether the uni
versity is a kind of fairground where any
one can peddle any articlejhe likes as long
as a sufficient number of people are inter
ested in it. At a university only scientific
disciplines have a right to a place. This does
not mean that religion as such should not
be the object of scientific speculation and
research. In sum. we must decide if the
Constitution is worth theK paper it is
written on or whether the authors of the
document in essence were only "joshing.
Charles M. Schofield,
Graduate, Philosophy and Education
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