Science...Expelled

[kevinator815]

So I just saw this trailer for this movie that come out of the 21 called Expelled, and it is about the dispute about religion and science, which is a very interesting subject because people have no clue on how this world came about. And Ben Stein is the feature interviewer of the entire movie. So it looks funny but the subject its very touchy and interesting, or at least to me, Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qxdVstJEc

[lao tzu]

So I just saw this trailer for this movie that come out of the 21 called Expelled, and it is about the dispute about religion and science, which is a very interesting subject because people have no clue on how this world came about. And Ben Stein is the feature interviewer of the entire movie. So it looks funny but the subject its very touchy and interesting, or at least to me, Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qxdVstJEc

Hiya, Kevinator, and welcome to TWeb!

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111722

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=107383

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111860

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111715

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=110891

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=110526

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=104411

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=102645

As ever, Jesse

[FreezBee]

So I just saw this trailer for this movie that come out of the 21 called Expelled, and it is about the dispute about religion and science, which is a very interesting subject because people have no clue on how this world came about. And Ben Stein is the feature interviewer of the entire movie. So it looks funny but the subject its very touchy and interesting, or at least to me, Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qxdVstJEc

A welcome from me too

You are right it's a very touchy subject.

What do you think? Does Ben Stein do a good job?


- FreezBee

[sc_q_jayce]

I should totally report Jesse for argument by weblink.

[Dispen4ever]

Hooray for Ben Stein.

[Kenny]

Hiya, Kevinator, and welcome to TWeb!

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111722

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=107383

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111860

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=111715

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=110891

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=110526

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=104411

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...d.php?t=102645

As ever, Jesse

I just saw that movie too. I've been wondering what people around here thought about it since then. Thanks for a new reading list!

[shunyadragon]

So I just saw this trailer for this movie that come out of the 21 called Expelled, and it is about the dispute about religion and science, which is a very interesting subject because people have no clue on how this world came about. And Ben Stein is the feature interviewer of the entire movie. So it looks funny but the subject its very touchy and interesting, or at least to me, Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qxdVstJEc

I am a theist and a scientist and I never was impressed with this foolishness.

Stein was expelled for just cause. Self imposed ignorance of science is no excuse.

[Kenny]

I am a theist and a scientist

What kind of scientist are you?

[gharfish]

Ben Stein was not expelled ! BTW, he does a great job in the film. His interview at the end with Richard Dawkins is a knee slapper ! He is so dry [throughout] that the serious questions he asks of opponents to the idea of an intelligence behind the universe are amusing to witness !

[Kenny]

I think Ben Stein did a decent job of drawing out the fact that there is a suppression of academic freedom when it comes to the ID movement. I think that what the IDers are saying is interesting and deserves a fair hearing (regardless of whether they are right or not).

That being said, I didn’t like how Expelled just bought into the fundy atheist claims of people like Dawkins and Dennett that the theory of evolution is incompatible with theism. I also thought that the whole part about how Darwinian evolution was connected with the Nazi movement was an abysmal argument from guilt by association.

I did think that it was very interesting that Dawkins pretty much conceded that it is possible, in principle, for there to be scientific evidence for intelligent design.

[gharfish]

That Nazi movement connection had to do with their practice of Eugenics; that's all...which is a troublesome thing to Jews.

[Kenny]

That Nazi movement connection had to do with Eugenics; that's all...which is a troublesome thing to Jews for obvious reasons.

Yes, but the mere fact that the Nazis appealed to Darwin’s theory of evolution to support their wicked agenda doesn’t entail that the theory of Darwinian evolution is false or even that it can be legitimately appealed to in support of such an agenda (and, in my view, it can’t be).

That argument is no better than the argument that Christian theism is false because atrocities have been committed in the name of Christian theism.

[gharfish]

Eugenics doesn't discredit full-blown Darwinian evolution's likelihood; no.

[Kenny]

Eugenics doesn't discredit full-blown Darwinian evolution's likelihood; no.

Yes. It also doesn’t even show that Darwinian evolution can be legitimately appealed to in support of such things.

[gharfish]

I thought it did show that eugenics as a practice could be appealed to using the theory. Theistic evolution never did seem to get brought up in Expelled. Sorry for that detour. Eugenics; not legitimately (rightly), for it's an evil that arose when applied by vicious fanatics--mad men.

Additionally, I think that Stein make a good argument that the Germans of that day lacked the kind of a religion that would have positively effected a better moral behavior and so in that vacuum 'took the theory to heart'--used it for that purpose.

That was the key second ingredient that led them, they thought, naturally, to apply it.

As I recall, that section of the film was trying to use history as a learning tool to appraise how socities that did eliminate a religion that stressed a good moral code to live by, and instead embraced atheism, have behaved. Religion is dangerous and restricts freedom, he was being told. But these societies; they did no better. None.

It looked to me like he was going 'to go after' Stalin's Russia, but he straightaway focused on the Germans' Nazis and their eugenics policy and philosophy. I think he went there and dwelled on it because he is a Jew (Stein). By that point in the film he had also been told by a few that the *elimination of religion* would surely produce a better world. We hear that mantra here all the time. I think it's really that Christianty is at the top of the list for it's founder, Jesus, who is an offense to them.

Back to the movie: in his interview with Dawkins, Stein asked him if the God of the OT--his God, couldn't be the God and the intelligent designer.

Didn't Dawkins think out loud with Stein about the possibility that a very very superior society very very long ago (E.T.s to us) could have planted the barest seed of life on earth--it evolved purely naturally (no God) from there ?