Look at this: the Expellers are lying again. In this case, they're screening people who've asked to attend showings, and then, instead of just telling them that they are not invited, they're being cowardly and telling them that the screening has been cancelled. It's so pointless — they could just state the truth, that they are only allowing friendly reviewers into the early screenings, but instead they seem compelled to make up pathetic, transparent excuses. I guess once they started lying, they can't stop anymore.
(By the way, if you're expecting me to annoy Ben Stein for yet another weekend, it's not in the cards. I'm at an evo-devo conference in Eugene, Oregon, so you're more likely to get science from me than rude movie reviews.)
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Nasty, despicable...
I say we mount a campaign to get all their science advisors fired from their academic posts!
Uh, wait...
let me get back to you on this one
Welcome back to Oregon! If I didn't have my mom in town for the weekend, Id drive over and buy you a beer. Have a safe trip, and enjoy the rain (I bet its better than snow and ice). And if you happen to make it over to Bend, I'll keep that promise for a beer.
On a related note, here's a pretty good account of Expelled, as far as I can tell:
It's true, they're targeting the non-educated segment of our society, and demonizing the "atheists" (btw, PZ, no doubt that is a reason why atheists have countered the film the most, though it's not smart of the more intelligent theists to just let the demonizing alone).
Not really much of a threat, apparently, just shearing the same poor sheep.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Still begging for theaters, too:
Doesn't look good for them, I'd say.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#3
At the podcast on skepticality.com Michael Shermer said he went through the same thing - at around 10 in the morning, Stein just left the interview and hung out in his car for a while, then came back. What an ass!
Oh, and attention Floridians and other concerned parties: the Judiciary Committee meeting on the "academic freedom" anti-evolution bill is slated for the morning of April 8. Based on past votes and sponsorship, it's 2-1 in the bill's favor on the 11-member committee. Let 'em know how you feel!
Welcome to Eugene! I'm looking forward to the conference.
With all this hubbub, curiosity is getting the better of me, I kind of want to see it now, but I don't want to give these people any money.
Ha, no one's surprised or even angry that they're lying.
Which is kind of sad, when you think about it.
"Darwinism does lead to atheism"!
Woohoo!
Teach the non-controversy!
Welcome to Oregon! Any plans for a meetup this weekend?
angrynight: that's been dealt with. Buy a ticket for another movie, then slip into the theatre where they're playing expelled.
But really, just read a review. In my experience, watching these things just makes your brain melt.
Would this be like firing your gun before taking it out of the holder, and shooting off your ear instead of your other foot?
Presumably the interview tactic of time-wasting is intended to irritate the interviewee, work them up into a frustrated disposition towards Stein, and so make them appear unsympathetically short or cross when the interview resumes.
Sounds like a suitably underhanded tactic for cdesign proponentsists. Sounds also like it essentially failed.
Dawkins really is far too nice :)
This "expellers are lying again" is a good frame, PZ. Keep up the great work.
...I wish Scalzi'd do a review of it.
I would love to hop over to Eugene and buy you a beer and perhaps even to debate the relative merits of astrophysics vs biology! Sadly, I have to work all weekend in PDX...
They are despicable douchebags.
Big Windfall for PZ! Read all about it!
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pig_Book_2008_tracks_Congressional_pork_0…
Having read the accounts of the screening at Stranger Fruit, my initial impression is that these Christers are evil scum, pure and simple. They are shameless about what they do, and so lack self-awareness that they don't realize how much they resemble the monsters they conjure on the screen. From the descriptions I've heard the movie is a circle-the-wagons operation to protect the tribe and inoculate the Godly from critical thought.
They are a gang of truthless snake-oil salesmen, are they not? They may be sufficiently vulnerable and human to actually believe their misshapen morality and be driven out of fear to shit out calumnies to smear the godless. But that would speak volumes about the way in which religion tears lives apart and compels congregations to live day-to-day in a virtual Matrix-reality, in obedience to a fiction.
I prefer to think of these Christers as a malign force. Not so much a Grendel ravaging the halls of truth and science than a mafiosi dedicated to whacking their opponents with the rusty sword of falsehood. These sharp-suited torpedoes for Christ are armed with lies and innuendo. Their aim is to give atheists a public licking in a dog-and-pony show that will keep the faithful in line.
Expelled is the Christer equivalent of a horse's head on the pillow. These people are vile and they are scum. We must never forget that.
PY, they can't help it. Lying is second nature to them. After all, the whole Christianity thing is based on lies.
It probably kinda rubs off after a while...
Eugene. What an excellent name to host an evo-devo conference :-)
Seems to me that they are being a tad over-optimistic. Ken McKnight over at Stranger Fruit says that the host told the audience that they were planning on opening at 1,000 theaters around the country and that they hoped to sell 2 million tickets on opening weekend.
OK so far... so doing the math... They have to sell 2,000 tickets per theater spread over a two to three day period (anyone know how many days are included in an opening weekend?). Ken says the theater he was in was packed at approx 100 people (anyone know average theater seating capacities?) That works out to 7 to 10 full house seatings per day!
Most theaters I have gone to only have 3 to 4 seatings per day.
They would have to pack em into theaters that seat 200 to 250 (or more) to reach their goal.
I may not have done the math right (3AM) but it doesn't look like they are going to reach their goal.
-DU-
Dave: your objection to their goal is that there's not enough room in the theatre?
Where's WOOT? I haven't seen a good booby today.
What do you mean lying again ? When did they finish the first time (time-outs to draw breath don't count)?
Wow. It's so ridiculous it's almost not even funny any more, just pathetic.
I beg to differ. "Lying again" would seem to imply that they had stopped lying at some point. If they did so then I missed it.
These bozos have gone well beyond silly and the whole fiasco is starting to cycle back around to not-funny. This will never do. Balance of the humours must be restored. Since they are so fond of "magical" thinking I will hereby point my magic wand at these offending asses and chant "Expelleranus*!"(for those without magic wands or tentacles the digitus impudus provides a perfectly good and possibly even superior substitute).
*not a typo, you HP purists. What else to use on those who persist in being so full of
I'm with Carlie, they've lied so often and so consistently it's gone beyond the ridiculous into the frankly tedious.
Stein et al: You made a bad propaganda movie that is being treated as such and are desperately trying to stem the flow of bad publicity by silencing critics.
It's not working and it's exposing you for the flagrantly dishonest hypocrites that you are.
While perusing the newsgroup alt.paranormal I saw a post there with the text from comment #4, begging for viewers of the movie, crossposted to alt.tarot and a few other, similar groups. If there were something like Smell-o-Vision on the internet, I'd now know what the smell of despair is.
Yeah, but the head is made of plastic and has a stick poking out the back; they left it in the wrong house and now a bunch of smarter kids have a toy to play with. Johnny Dangerously had more effective mobsters.
OT but:
If anyone wants to look at Dembski's alter-ego's latest post on Uncommonly Dense you'll see possibly the worst attempt at a humorous jab I've ever seen. Ever.
Not only does he suck at biology, theology, reading comprehension and arguably math he's epically horrible at humor.
Don't fail to notice the Devil character in the back, and remember ID has nothing to do with religion.
On one level I agree with you. But at the same time I don't want to trivialize these vicious toads. They are dangerous and Expelled is just one weapon in their armory.
Why hasn't someone like, oh, Behe, maybe, taken them aside and told them to quietly drop it and pretend it never happened?
Any other course of action will slowly but surely ruin their careers and their positions.
In general, I agree that the anti-science crowd is incredibly dangerous. However, just because a group is dangerous as a whole doesn't mean that every single tactic or weapon is effective. In this case, I think it's been repeatedly shown that Expelled, at least, has been a debacle. The incompetence here is laughable.
I've got one friend online that happens to be of a strong fundamentalist background (though he's actually rational enough to listen to and discuss other ideas), and he cracked up at the PZ expulsion. And, where they give us opportunity to use it, laughter, ridicule, and trivialization are excellent weapons against bad ideas. Expelled is the best opportunity we've had for a while to say, "Really? You actually believe that?" We should take it and run with it, because the ridicule can make other people see the silliness, too, and that makes the rest of their weapons less effective.
Lies? So what. What's a lie to a right-winger?
It's a useful tool. Lying is their friend.
They care about one thing. Getting their little cultural hate message out there:
Darwin = Hitler
They are devotees of the big lie.
Their eyes are on the prize: reinforce hatred of "liberal" academia and keep those anti-intellectual godiots everywhere happy.
To accomplish that goal, they will do whatever it takes: lie to PZ and Dawkins (And why not? they are atheistic liberals? Why be nice to atheistic liberals?), kick people out of theaters, and "cancel" shows.
You are but means to their ugly little end, treated like shit because you are considered to be shit.
Does Mathis wake up in the middle of the night and think: WTF? Why am I doing this?
No. That would require a conscience. Which he does not have.
Ridicule is definitely the way to go!
Case in point: we got emails saying the Louisville showing was canceled. (Actually, I think they never reserved the theater in the first place. The theater staff told me they had no private shows on the scheduled date.) We were expecting a notice telling us when the new date screening would be.
Instead I learned yesterday that the promoters screened the flick for students and staff at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary April 1 (fittingly). Neither I nor my wife, who placed our names on the waitlist, received any notification about the change in venue. Going to the RSVP website has the Louisville event marked as happened already.
So I figure the ruckus about PZ and Dawkins in Minneapolis must have put the promoters off of quasi-public screenings. Or they ran out of money and couldn't rent any more commercial theaters. Or both.
I like PZ's previous approach of "Newtonism" -- we should all start attacking "Newtonism" and all of the evils that it produces. I think people would obviously get the satire and hopefully realize the parallels to the "Darwinism" issues.
Or maybe they'd just get confused. Most people aren't terribly smart.
#36-
I wish people would pay more attention to posts like yours.
From everything I've read about this, the movie shows all the signs of becoming a commercial flop. Their pre-screening campaign--which should be about generating buzz and wider interest--- seems to have shifted into some sort of stealth mode
For example, I can't for the life of me figure out if and where it will be screened in my area, which is a major metro in the heart of the bible belt.
The majority of viewers will likely end up watching the movie seated in the baptist church basements.....accidentally.
I mean, BFD.
This certainly doesn't sound like its the Passion of the Christ.
Darwinism does lead to atheism
I've never really thought so, actually. One can easily justify "Darwinism" and theism. If environment controls biology, some noncorporeal omniscient omnipotent being could be controlling the environment in such a way to generate whatever effects it desired, right? At least hypothetically.
I feel like I'm one of the few atheists who feels no requirement for evolution to be true to be an atheist. Evolution could be shattered quite handily and I would have no inkling to believe ID.
Why? Well, ID is a probabilistic hypothesis, without having any of the ACTUAL probabilities on hand and analyzing everything post-hoc. Maybe some find this persuasive, but I cannot.
Note that I apply the same to extraterrestrially originating life, and thus lack any belief in the existence of aliens.
Ken says the theater he was in was packed at approx 100 people (anyone know average theater seating capacities?)
100 people is a very small theater. More typical is the 400-450 range (I think most theaters stop selling tickets at 90% or so, though).
As their future projects appear to include an 8 hour (egad!) television miniseries on ID as well as a 'sanctity of life' movie, I can only hope that the train wreck that is 'Expelled' *jazz hands* will bankrupt them and preempt any further drivel of this ilk.
On a happier note: A Eugene meet-up this weekend? If you are attending the Evo-Devo conference, or just in the area, drop me an email: phillips(at)uoneuro(dot)uoregon(dot)edu and let's see if we can put something together.
Off topic but go to Google and do a search on "PZ Myers" or "Richard Dawkins" check out the sponsored links. Then click the link and bask in the joy of knowing you just cost Ben Stein and his band of creationist whack jobs some coin.
I have a Google Adsense account, maybe tonight I'll look and see how much money their paying for each click.
Fun!
One can easily justify "Darwinism" and theism.
I agree with your comment on its face, and also agree that one does not need for evolution to be true for one to be an atheist. The evidence is in the scores of theists who agree with naturalistic evolution, and the many atheists who know relatively little about evolution.
However, the ToE and other scientific theories make the hypothesis of god unnecessary. No one can prove a negative, so yes god might exist, but only in the weakest Deistic sense without any other attributes. Once we start adding attributes to god, it becomes fairly easy to disprove.
Many people manage to compartmentalize their beliefs, NOMA-style, so that science and religion can coexist in peace. Science keeps compressing and squeezing that compartment of faith but somehow it remains intact. How anyone manages two epistemologies at once is beyond me, and seems intellectually dishonest.
If the methods of science, skepticism and empiricism, are applied to religious belief, it disappears like a fart in the wind. If people are universally scientific in their beliefs, using science 'all the way down,' then science can and should lead to atheism, because Deism is a null hypothesis and indistinguishable from no god.
I'm not saying that CrypticLife disagrees, merely that I can easily understand the original sentiment of CalGeorge that Darwinism does lead to atheism.
Wheatdogg, That would explain why my wife and I never heard about the moved showing. Oh well.
Lee @18,
I would agree with all that you say if you make the distinction between "Christers" and Christians in general.
Some of my best friends are Christians.
Eugene, Or, eh? That's where I live... who knew we had an evo-devo conference... :)
I hope Expelled comes here so I can heckle. :)
Where do you draw the line? Do you say this stops with the crew who made Expelled? Or with the bible-thumpers who preach loudly against evolution? Or with the lumpen Godly who don't care to think much about this but who unquestioningly accept lies about science? Or shall we draw the line at the Christians who know better but stand aside and fail to speak out?
The responsibility for this ripples outward. Some folk may be less culpable than others but at the same time they share some of the blame.
I don't know your best friends from Adam. But if they are in one of the categories I listed above, I'd gently suggest to you that they are part of the problem.
Was anyone else as disturbed by Ken McKnight's story as I was?
These expelled people are really serious. They are dangerous. And they are growing desperate. Given the history of religious fundo's, how long before they actually become violent?
Besides, aren't there laws against conducting interviews under false pretenses? Isn't there anything in the film that could be considered slander against the people interviewed? A lot of what they are saying is provably false. Can't they be sued for distributing lies, especially when they are designed to rise hystaria against a minority of the population (i.e. athiests)? How can their actions be legal?
This film is hate speach directed at athiests.
I really don't see this as a laughing matter.
Lee, given the handle of the person who posed that question, I'm wondering if this might be an attempt at parody? It's SO hard to tell :)
Myers you bonehead, you have missed the critical ethics involved in differentiating ethical framing from disgusting, distorting, & lying unethical framing - as enunciated by Nisbet.
The Tempe Expellers are framing unethically with a hidden and therefore unobserved motive to manipulate the behavior of their fellow humans.
You could call it an agenda, a scurrilous purpose, literary license, or even a bamboozle.
Framing "scientists" are a subgroup of the HUMAN SCIENCES and take no instruction or direction from the natural sciences.
These special human scientists never knowingly frame unethically.
They are very much like lawyers - who as we all know are sworn to behave professionally but not necessarily tell he whole trut - just as much trut as their frames allow.
Ethical framing only wants to help the framee get the framer's message RIGHT by getting the words RIGHT. and thereby achieving "resonance" with the listener/framee.
So lying (or admitting to conscious lying) is verbotten by definition in ethical framing as in the professional ethics of lawyering.
Whether lying is unethical or not depends on the frame created by the framer/lawyer - you understand, do you not?
Unethical framing/lawyering is hurtful and despicable - a routine exercise in preferences or a matters of taste - as in the Ginger or Mary Ann conundrum,
Understanding the frame, of course, requires objective science for analysis - demanding a natural science analysis of the so-called Human Sciences and their subsidiary arts of framing and lawyering.
ennui said:
"No one can prove a negative, so yes god might exist"
I have heard this time and again, but it's simply not the case, and repeating it only supplies theists with ammunition.
The fact of the matter is that many negatives (even universal negatives can be proven. For example, it is universally true that there are no round triangles. Similarly, there are no married bachelors.
As it pertains to the god question, we can see that suffering exists in the world. By definition, god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Therefore, god cannot exist. See, since suffering exists, it must be the case that either god is unaware of said suffering (hence not omniscient), is powerless to stop the suffering he does know about (hence not omnipotent), or or knows about suffering, has the power to stop it, but doesn't (hence not omnibenevolent). Now, perhaps you'll say that he's doesn't possess these properties in an unlimited quantity, merely an extraordinarily huge quantity. If so, you're not talking about god. Any such being is not worthy of worship. Fear maybe, but not worship.
Moreover, the very properties of god are logically contradictory in the same way that me describing Tom as a married bachelor is logically contradictory. God cannot be simultaneously omnipotent and omniscient. If he were omnipotent he could make himself forget things, but that would negate his omniscience. If he were omnipotent, he could think of things beyond his power. Etc.
Certain universal negatives can be proven, and the non-existence of god is one of them, despite theist protestations to the contrary.
Imagine that. These creationists are expelling criticism of their show Expelled.
Such dishonesty, usually trained out of children through the teaching of proper morals.
Wazza #22,
I don't have an objection to their goal... I just don't see that they are going to be capable of it. I am going to be interested in how they spin it.
I also signed up with one of those RSVP thingies for a showing in Maryland somewhere. It was the closest location to me (I am in northern New Jersey). I also got a cancellation email (but no CC listing in the header). Lemme see...
It would not have been worth a trip to Maryland. I didn't think to see if they had merely changed the schedule to an earlier time. I might have made the trip if I had known there was going to be an ealrier showing.
If and when asked, I would have told them I am the Physics Lab Director at Ramapo College of New Jersey. When asked about my church affiliation I would have told them that I do not have a church affiliation. I would have told them I have come here to learn about the "science" of ID not the religion and how it relates to academics in colleges and universities. All true.
-DU-
Lee,
Danio is correct, a certain amount of...um...irony was intended in my post, especially in my parting shot.
But yes, I do count among my friends Christians willing to fight against creationism going into public schools. There are many others for whom the issue just is not on their radar because they are focused on issues like the war or the current administration's assault on the Constitution.
Even for me, the issue is not central. I use it like a canary in a mine. If an idea a ludicrous as creationism is getting political traction, it is a indication of much worse things to come.
Nyar @ №51:
Your examples that reference round triangles and unmarried bachelors are not empirical propositions, they are tautologies. They do not apply to the god hypothesis.
Your arbitrary attribution to god the qualities of omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., do not apply to my example of Deism. God does not have to be defined as more than an originator.
Either you did not understand my comment, or you simply stopped reading when you found that one sentence. I humbly suggest that you read the whole comment, and stop making a muppet of yourself.
#32 wazza wrote:
Behe won't do it, he's our version of Robert Hanssen!
Irony. Is that like goldy and silvery only duller?
ennui @ #55:
But creationists do not use your example of deism. They define their god as much more than an originator. They assign specific attributes to their imaginary friend, some of which are mutually exclusive.
Granted, the Dishonesty Institute's "don't ask don't tell" strategy tries to gloss over this, but these people aren't talking about an uninterested deist god, they're talking about their favorite invisible sky tyrant, a deity that they claim does things and says things and interacts with the world.
There are some concepts of god that can be proven wrong, and some that cannot. There are some religions that make claims that are patently false, and others that do not. The more claims a religion makes, the more likely it is to make a demonstrably false one.
The IGERT meeting in Eugene this weekend looks totally cool...lots of fantastic evo-devo research:
(http://evodevo.uoregon.edu/symposium-schedule.html)
Wish I could go, but alas!
:-(
phantomreader42:
I never claimed that creotards define god the way that deists do. I agree with everything that you typed.
Your strawman has been knocked down. Congrats! Jog on.
ennui said: "Your examples that reference round triangles and unmarried bachelors are not empirical propositions, they are tautologies. They do not apply to the god hypothesis."
They do in the way I demonstrated. Being married and being a bachelor are mutually exclusive. Being omnipotent and being omniscient are mutually exclusive. Also, I demonstrated that god cannot exist in a non-tautological fashion in my example of suffering.
Ennui continued: "Your arbitrary attribution to god the qualities of omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., do not apply to my example of Deism. God does not have to be defined as more than an originator."
The god of deism is not God. He's an architect. He's not worthy of worship, and not the source of revelation. You're sidestepping.
Ennui finished: "Either you did not understand my comment, or you simply stopped reading when you found that one sentence. I humbly suggest that you read the whole comment, and stop making a muppet of yourself."
Was this a note to yourself?
Let me just add to my previous post that any hypothetical being that may have created the universe is not necessarily god. The Demiurge is not god. God is "that, than which nothing greater can be conceived." Anything less is merely a superman. The gods of the greek and roman pantheons were not 'Gods', they were merely supermen, they were 'gods.'
Creation science must be taken seriously!
"Irony. Is that like goldy and silvery only duller?"
Sharp.
I want to try to put us back on track by reviewing some comments. I think you'll find that we do not substantially disagree:
Expelled has as its thesis that Darwinism->atheism->Nazism.
#3 Glen D posted a movie review that noted this theme, that "Darwinism does lead to atheism."
#9 CalGeorge said: "Darwinism does lead to atheism! Woohoo! Teach the non-controversy!"
#39 CrypticLife said: "One can easily justify 'Darwinism' and theism."
#43 ennui said: (emphasis added)
#51 Nyar said:
Notice the lower-case 'g.' The only time I used a capital 'G' was at the beginning of a sentence. I do not disagree with the general formulation of The Problem of Evil (or suffering). I was making the point that even deism leads to atheism if empiricism and skepticism are applied to the god hypothesis. You took me out of context, set up a straw man using tautologies, and threadjacked the comments. I do not think that I am giving any ammunition to the creos, they can sidestep the problem of suffering simply by giving additional attributes to God (i.e. Divine Plan).
And St. Anselm's Ontological Argument is not the only definition of God, Nyar.
The question being discussed was: Does "Darwinism" lead to atheism? Discuss.
#65 ennui,
Acceptance of evolution does not necessarily lead to atheism; witness the many religious people who accept evolution. It is not compatible with Biblical literalism and similar fundamentalist religious viewpoints, however, much as young-earth creationism is not compatible with science. If one's religious beliefs rely so heavily upon anti-science fundamentalist views that repudiation of those views destroys your entire religious belief system, then in that case, yes, acceptance of evolution leads to atheism.
Cross-post from Talkorigins (things are going through slowly now), which I think responds reasonably well to ennui's challenge for discussion (as well as hitting at Expelled once more):
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Another cross-post, which I think is quite significant because Stein explicitly states that Darwin should have just kept quiet (and he's claiming that everyone should be heard):
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Just heard this on my local public radio station:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/04/expelled_movi…
It's not critical at all of the movie's content. Very irritating!
Does "Darwinism" lead to atheism?
No. "Darwinism" or more correctly "subscribing to the Theory of Evolution" is incidental to atheism.
Atheism is arrived at by:
1) Being brought up as an atheist and not allowing yourself to be infected, I mean, converted to a religion.
2) Freeing yourself from your religion through exposure to large amounts of information (education) and logical ways of reasoning which allow you accept rigorous observations and physical evidence and trust in the scientific method.
Evolution is arrived at by:
1) Accepting rigorous observations and physical evidence and trusting in the scientific method.
There are no religious requirements for accepting evolution as long as your religion does not blind you to reality.
There are no scientific requirements for being an atheist.
Having a rational mind leads to atheism and/or evolution.
The better question (the one that the fundies are asking) is: Does evolution lead to a breakdown of the fundy - young earth - literal view of Genesis? That answer is YES.
So if your religion is based entirely upon the fundy - young earth - literal view of Genesis does evolution require you to reevaluate your faith? Yes.
By reevaluating your faith is there a good chance that you will discover that it is a giant load of lies designed to control you? Yes.
Upon discovering that your beliefs are a lie are you likely to leave your faith thereby reducing the power of the church? Yes.
So if you are a fundy - young earth - literal view of Genesis based church are you likely to argue that "Darwinism (you know that monkey guy) leads to Atheism (evil godless heathens)" in order to galvanize your faithful into fighting against proper science education in order to reduce the number of people who decide to reevaluate their faith? Yes.
"Acceptance of evolution does not necessarily lead to atheism; witness the many religious people who accept evolution."
Science throws the stories of the Bible into extreme doubt. Bible accounts of how people and animals came to be do not work anymore. Period.
So, they can't have it both ways. Look what happens when a scientist tries to have it both ways - you get Francis Collins getting hmself into tangles trying to insert god back into the mix. It doesn't work. When your average joe does it, it probably reflect unwillingness to reliquish either that cozy relationship with Mr. Invisible or what joe is being told by the Science section of the morning paper. Unable to reconcile these points of view, people stop thinking. If they were to keep on thinking, they would likely be forced towards atheism. But they don't want that - that's bad! So they stop thinking and manage to live with an illogical mash-up of religion and evolution inside their heads.
Re #68: Stein's comment is typical "Repugnican"... I can picture Stein saying, "Hey, Goodman, Schwerner, you're college-educated white boys, why the hell do you want to go down to Mississippi and stir the pot?"
Yes, as Glen said, Stein contradicts himself.
1. Darwin caused the Holocaust.
2. The religion of the USA is Darwinism.
3. Therefore the USA should have wiped out all of its Jews.
Something wrong here. The USA is one of the few places where Jews have thrived and assimilated into the general population. As well, we keep Israel afloat with billions of dollars every year. In fact, we were the ones with the atheistic commies who stopped the Nazis and rescued the remaining Jews in Axis captivity.
Stein is just babbling without a single care as to whether it is truthful or makes any sense whatsoever. A low life bottom feeder.
Stein's an opportunist. I wonder if he believes in any of this, or in any power or cause more noble than the power of profit or the cause of self-promotion.
Myers[sic] you bonehead
Ohhhh Jeeeefffff.
Spazio's back.
Do not worry, Ichthyic. I just happened along here and I will gladly do my thing, even if I am not Jeff.
Gerry, you fucking twit!
The deed is done.
Whenever I see Gerry back I get all misty eyed for the Truth Machine.
Ohhhh Jeeeefffff.
Spazio's back.
I've grown tired of toying with him. It does grow old after a while.
#69 Don Smith, FCD wrote:
I just wrote and gave them a strongly-worded piece of my mind. Thanks, Don!
I disagree on Stein's motives for this. I think he likes to think that he's some kind of genius but deep down he knows that he's a dumbass. Just look at his resume. He was a speech writer for one of the most crooked presidents in history, he's a failed economist, and his acting skills consist of saying the name "Buehller" in a flat monotone. The man is a walking bill board of failure. I think he is involved with Expelled because in his idiocy he thinks it somehow affirms his "genius". He's such a moron he doesn't realize that by being associated with that turd of a movie he is in fact DOOMED. No scratch that, he's moved beyond just being DOOMED. He is straight up fucked. And not just normally fucked, oh no. He's straight up, "holy shit it's a polar bear with a chainsaw!" fucked.
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9998/polarbearwf2.jpg
Neo-Darwinists ask us to believe in things not seen.
Irony, by Ben Stein. *applause* This may well be the funniest thing BS has ever uttered.
There is so much whining about lying on these blogs nowadays!
Why is that such a problem for athiest scientists? If we are all just meat puppets with no real control over our own actions, why the terrible tantrums. Perhaps we will see the survival of the biggest liars. Why should that concern you so much?
If you don't believe in free will and are not responsible to to a creator, then who elected you the supreme meat-puppet morality judge?
Dolly, please answer these questions, if you can:
1. Why do you assume we're all atheists?
2. Why do you assume we're all scientists?
3. Why do you believe we're all just meat puppets?
4. Why do you think people who object to lying shouldn't be concerned about the words and actions of liars?
5. Why do you think people who comment here don't believe in free will?
6. Why do you think atheism implies no responsibility?
7. Would you become an amoral psychopath if you somehow found out there was no god?
8. If not, why not?
Sorry. Correction to Question 7. I meant "amoral sociopath". (The distinction matters.)
Kseniya, my comments were made to the cheerleaders of the new atheists and their heroes. If the shoe fit, wear it. The very fact that you ARE concerned about lies, is testament to the moral code which God has instilled in you. Evidence that you are created in God's image (Please don't give me another Darwinian just-so-story about how HUMAN learnt to lie or How HUMAN learnt to be good) I have more than adequately covered those on my blog!
I got this one, Ks
Dolly, you haven't covered the evidence at all, unless you've discovered some unique new principle on this blog of yours (which you haven't linked to, so I can't provide a specific refutation)
But the arguments currently advanced against evolution or for special creation simply don't match the evidence. Also, morality coming from god is incompatible with the diversity of moral positions. If god existed, and instilled all humans (including atheists, which is what you just implied) with a basic moral code matching that in the bible, I wouldn't think that an open relationship is the most mature form of love, and I would think that genocide is perfectly all right.
We don't argue for setting ourselves up as the ultimate judges of morality; we argue for setting up society as a whole as the judge of morality, based on the principles of non-interference and non-harm. That means you can even follow a christian philosophy, so long as you don't try to force it down others' throats.
isn't it a problem for the theists who are doing the lying?
Damn blockquotes. The last line is, of course, mine.
Now that I think of it, I've seen Dolly post over at PT, and I always got the impression that she was a parodist.
Unfortunately the principle of non-interference and non-harm do not gel with the statements like:
"The only appropriate responses [to proponents of Intelligent Design] should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archiv....html#comments
Spare us please!
Dolly, this is because non-interference only applies to those who also practise that principle. When someone starts interfering, others have to interfere with them in order to protect the rights of all. This is why we have laws, police, regulatory bodies, and citizens' rights organisations.
We'll spare you when you stop infringing on people's rights
Perhaps off-topic, but this almost caused me to choke on my mushroom salad starter last night...
Last week's The eCONomist (as I prefer to spell it), March 29th-April 4th 2008 (Vol. 386, Number 8573), had an article, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, comparing the responses to a survey done in both the UK and the USA.
One of the questions shown in the article was "Which explains the origin of the Earth?", with answers "the theory of evolution", "the bible", and "intelligent design". I was hoping the editor had just messed up the question or possible answers, but no, that apparently is what was really asked!
From the full report (PDF):
In typical eCONomist style, the correct response is not an option: "None of your fecking choices have anything to do with the fecking question you fecking idiots! And by the way, you nisbetian fools, ID and cretinism is the same fecking thing. Ever hear of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District?"
I presume anyone giving the correct response got lumped into the catch-all "Not sure" category. Allowing for the genuinely befuddled and assuming the poll is representative, that suggests that, at beast, c.10% of each country are plausibly rational.
Wazza, how very happy I am not to live under your reign. Your words sound ominously familiar!
Dolly, you already do live under the reign of these principles, so it should sound familiar. They are the principles of democratic governance, accepted both by classical liberals (Repugnicans) and modern liberals (Democrats).
Why, did you think the laws of your country were handed down by god? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was once a philosophy antithetical to the church!
Maybe OT, but this article about a Spanish Mayor who has published a guide for his electorate "Free Guide to Apostasy" might interest you.
http://www.rue89.com/ibere-espace/comment-quitter-l%E2%80%99eglise-un-m…
The Mayor says that it is not "to attack the Church but to defend the rights of all".
A lawyer for the program says, "The service is saturated. A lot of people were trying to become apostates, but found themselves blocked by administrative formalities."
Dolly, can you hear that sound? I'm playing the world's smallest violin just for you. :-)
"If you don't believe in free will and are not responsible to to a creator, then who elected you the supreme meat-puppet morality judge?"
Q. Who elected you responsible to the creator you make up in your head every single fucking day?
A. A host of deluded people, spouting their bullshit from the days when the "Bible" was written and codified all the way up to today.
Q. Who elected "God" the supreme judge of morality?
A. Not me - I'm not interested in being God's meat puppet. "It's god's will...."? Fuck that.
Think about it.
Cal: courtesy helps the cause, man
we're trying to show we're more moral than them, so we got to act it
but I can understand your anger. I mean, she called me a meat puppet and I think she was angling towards calling me a nazi, too
because she's Ben Stein's meat puppet
:P
Dolly has decided to turn off her brain, ignore common sense, and come here to insult atheists - likely because it helps her to cement her little superiority complex.
She deserves the criticism.
% of young adults (18-34) who believe in God and that religion is important to their daily life :
USA = 65%
UK = 18%
Striking ! Aaah these god damned british...
(from the Economist report, link provided by blf #91)
Hey Dolly!!! Rushdooney, an important Xian Dominionist theologian wants to set up a theocracy in the USA and kill 99% of the citizens, 297 million people. That is after stoning disobedient children to death as in Deuteronomy 23 as a warmup.
Are all you fundie Death Cultists this psychopathic and murderous?
The answer is no. They all seem to want to kill various groups and they all want God to show up and kill 6.7 billion and destroy the earth. But 99% is above their average.
No one has ever got an intelligent reply from Dolly. She is just a hit and run troll dropping off some insults.
If Dolly's not a parody (and an attempt at parody fails if it's indistinguishable from what it intends to lampoon) then she's probably unreachable.
Notice that she dodged all my questions, and offered nothing but an unsupported assertion which begs the question completely. (God exists and is the source of all morality; atheists exhibit moral thinking and behavior; therefore, God.)
What's notable about this stance is its incoherence. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowlege of good and evil ("And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...") they wouldn't need God to tell them the difference between right and wrong, for they had both become as fully aware of the moral code as was God himself. Free will therefore implies that their responsibility was to their own understanding of the moral code rather than to God, who had become superfluous as a source of morality at the first bite of apple. For to whom was God responsible other than to Himself? And what had Adam and Eve become? "As one of us." At best, then, the story of Adam and Eve serves as a metaphor for mankind's acquisition (and apparently god-like understanding, LOL) of morality.
I dunno, I'm still on my first cup of coffee. That last paragraph may not be completely coherent either. ;-)
I still get warm fuzzies when I think that I got a christian to admit that the society she probably hates people for not being patriotic enough about sounds ominous to her when described in theoretical terms
does this mean christians are the enemies of democracy?
@ wazza (#102): Clearly many of them are. Beautiful job of flushing out Dolly's intolerance and stupidity. Nicely done!
#91 blf,
Overlooking the fact that "origin of the earth" has nothing to do with evolutionary biology, I actually take some comfort in the fact that "intelligent design" was incorrectly defined, so that a lot of people choosing that option could easily be theistic evolutionists. It's still ludicrous that we have that many anti-science adherents in the US, but it's a bit of a silver lining.
This is more or less off-topic, but it's occurred to me that by accepting the term "intelligent design" we're feeding the fire. Defenders of the idea they call "intelligent design" are Creationists, even though many of them try to publicly deny it. Also, although I think it's less misleading, the term "Darwinists" for those of us who defend evolution is problematic. While Darwin's theories are basically correct they've changed over time. They have, appropriately, evolved as knowledge has grown. To call an evolutionary biologist a "Darwinist" is the equivalent of calling a physicist a "Newtonian", or even an "Einsteinian".
Sorry to jump in with that, but it seems to me we should be pushing back semantically as well as scientifically. They've appropriated the term "intelligence" without actually demonstrating any (aside from knowing how to market their ideas) and unfairly labelled scientists as though evolution were the sole concept of a single person, and not a scientifically tested and validated fact. And we've shot ourselves in the foot by accepting their terms.
Chris, I agree with you in some ways, but intelligent design as a label is also a bit of an achilles heel. Every time we reveal unintelligent design, we knock their theory, without much effort on our part. And really, a biologist being called a darwinist is no different from an economist being called a keynesian, even though the ideas of both groups have moved on. Paying homage to the founder of a philosophy or theory this way is normal. And physics is indeed broken up into "newtonian" and "einsteinian" groups, depending on applications. But yes, we need to start defining them instead of letting them define us.
I didn't realize that is an IGERT conference. My neuroengineering PhD has been supported partially by an NSF IGERT fellowship. We're on the engineering side, though, so we try to do it from a creationist perspective.
"The very fact that you ARE concerned about lies, is testament to the moral code which God has instilled in you."
Uh huh. Because we as a species just aren't smart enough to come up with "Thou shalt not lie" by ourselves.