Expelled Exposed! (reject, Creator, Darwin, Earth, beliefs)

[ogmios]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

No.

The theory of evolution says that inheritibility of traits, random mutation and natural selection produce adaptation and speciation over time... and that's all. The creation of the universe is not evolution. The creation of life from non-life is not evolution. Evolution is only what happened after life began.


You list your religion as Catholic; you realize that the Vatican has declared that the theory of evolution is consistent with Church teaching, right?

That is one reason that confuses me, how can we as infants(me) be taught something; creation, and then the church modifies it's view points and changes things to be politically correct?
It shows an inconsistancy would you not agree? I was brought up as Catholic I really dont know what I am now. I know that I try to be good all of the time and help anyone who asks for help and even those I see need help I offer to help. The confession thing I do not partake in, I am inherantly good as are all humans, if I make a mistake God know's it. I always try and make up for the errors of my ways. Just dissillusioned I guess, now I focus on God and His Son Jesus, God made into man.

[ogmios]

Originally Posted by mball1297

I've always loved this argument. Just open your mind to God, and ask him to show himself to you, and he will. Basically, pretend that God exists, and try to make yourself see him, and you will. I love how it implies that I'm just not good enough as is. I love the implication that it's just because I haven't really tried, and that if I was only open to the possibility, I'd see God in nature, too.

I was a Catholic for about 18 years. I don't see God in anything. I'm not closed to the possibility of his existence, I just don't have any reason to believe he does exist. If he did exist, don't you think I would be able to see him regardless of my disposition? The fact is that your proof convinces you because you want it to, but it is far from real proof for the majority of people. For me there needs to be evidence in order to believe, not belief in order to see the evidence.

And it might be a good idea to stop pushing your blog. If you have something important to the conversation, post it here (meaning on this site, not necessarily in this thread). Your "I'll explain everything, just go read my blog and get my numbers up there" ploy is boorish.

Fair enough

[Alceste]

Originally Posted by ogmios

It is proof enough for anyone who is open to the concept of God actually existing. The shape (God)
Is kinda- human like is it not? We have been told we were made in God's image. You can use your free will as you please but, in my mind I see it as proof. There will never be a simple explanation for God. Why not ask (God) to give you a sign in your dreams, it works for me.

I dunno about your God-shape / human-shape thing. It makes no sense to me, as I said before, as there's no logic to it, and I'm very logically minded.

I don't bother asking God for things because I am satisfied with my spiritual life and feel there is nothing lacking. There are no deities in the picture - they are not necessary for my spiritual satisfaction. People who are spiritually fulfilled without gods or religioins don't go looking for them. That would be like going looking for a McDonalds when you've just filled up on fresh salad from your own garden.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by ogmios

That is one reason that confuses me, how can we as infants(me) be taught something; creation, and then the church modifies it's view points and changes things to be politically correct?

It didn't change them to be politically correct. The Church as a body never had any official views on the subject; the majority of people in the Church in a position to teach others have changed their own positions in the light of overwhelming evidence.

AFAIK, the Church's position has always been that believers are free to believe whatever they want that does not conflict with the doctrine of the Church, and Young Earth Creationism has never been doctrine. The Church has also acknowledged the usefulness of science in understanding our world, especially in the last few centuries.

The Church is also not in the habit of trying to put limitations on the abilities of God. Effectively, the Church's position is that God created the world, the creatures in it and humanity however He saw fit, and that evidence of how He did this may be available for us to see now.

The only doctrinal restriction that the Church has placed on evolution is that the first true humans must have been a single pair (i.e. "Adam" and "Eve"), since otherwise Original Sin doesn't work. This poses a few scientific problems of its own, since speciation usually happens in groups and not with lone pairs, but the Church has no problem at all with 99% of evolutionary theory.

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by ogmios

All I will say is that the scientists who discovered this re-occurring shape within nature, must have been practicing out of their field. What re-occurring shape? (go to my blog)

Sorry, but the recurring shape you are referring to was created by a mathematical algorithm programed into the computer and did not come from the photo itself. You should have realized this when you claimed that the computer could not find the absolute smallest shape within the photograph of the leaf. No Photograph can capture detail smaller than the film grain itself.

[fantôme profane]

Here is Ken Miller’s review of the movie from the Boston Globe May 8th 2008.

Kenneth R. Miller
Trouble ahead for science

By Kenneth R. Miller
May 8, 2008


AMERICAN science is in trouble, and if you wonder why, just go to the movies. Popular culture is gradually turning against science, and Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled," is helping to push it along.

"Intelligent Design," the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can't seem to produce any evidence. To scientists, the reasons for this are obvious. To conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Intelligent Design is nothing more than a "phony theory." No data, no science, no experiments, just an attempt to sneak a narrow set of religious views into US classrooms.
Advocates of Intelligent Design needed a story to explain why the idea has been a nonstarter within the scientific community, and Ben Stein has given it to them. The story line is that Intelligent Design advocates are persecuted and suppressed. "Expelled" tells of this terrible campaign against free expression, and mocks the pretensions of the closed-minded scientific elite supposedly behind it.
There are many things wrong with this movie. One example: Viewers are told that Dr. Richard Sternberg lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution because he edited a paper favorable to Intelligent Design. Wrong.
Sternberg wasn't even employed by the Smithsonian (he had no job to lose), and had resigned as journal editor six months before the paper was published. In fact, the irony is that neither Steinberg nor any of the other people featured as martyrs in "Expelled" lost jobs as a result of their advocacy of Intelligent Design, while many others who supported evolution have. In 2007, Chris Comer, the director of science education for Texas schools, was fired for having done nothing more than forwarding an e-mail announcing a pro-evolution seminar.
The movie also uses interviews with avowed atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," to argue that scientific establishment is vehemently anti-God. Never mind that 40 percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal God. Stein, avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that "Darwinists" don't allow scientists to even think of God.
Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film's co-producer, why he and Stein didn't interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying "Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily." In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line.
Despite these falsehoods, by far the film's most outlandish misrepresentation is its linkage of Darwin with the Holocaust. A concentration camp tour guide tells Stein that the Nazis were practicing "Darwinism," and that's that. Never mind those belt buckles proclaiming Gott mit uns (God is with us), the toxic anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, the ghettoes and murderous pogroms in Christian Europe centuries before Darwin's birth. No matter. It's all the fault of evolution.
Why is all this nonsense a threat to science? The reason is Stein's libelous conclusion that science is simply evil. In an April 21 interview on the Trinity Broadcast Network, Stein called the Nazi murder of children "horrifying beyond words." Indeed. But what led to such horrors? Stein explained: "that's where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion, that's where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people."
According to Stein, science leads you to "killing people." Not to cures and vaccines, not to a deeper understanding of nature, not to wonders like computers and cellphones, and certainly not to a better life. Nope. Science is murder.
"Expelled" is a shoddy piece of propaganda that props up the failures of Intelligent Design by playing the victim card. It deceives its audiences, slanders the scientific community, and contributes mightily to a climate of hostility to science itself. Stein is doing nothing less than helping turn a generation of American youth away from science. If we actually come to believe that science leads to murder, then we deserve to lose world leadership in science. In that sense, the word "expelled" may have a different and more tragic connotation for our country than Stein intended.
Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at Brown University, is author of "Only a Theory - Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul," which will be published next month.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by Sk8Joyful

Sadly true

Really? You know of scientists who were fired for being Christian? Please name two.

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by ogmios

Evolution say's the universe started with a big bang, and that everything evolved from tadpoles or something like that,no?

No, it doesn't. Are you interested in learning what the Theory of Evolution actually says, or do you prefer to remain misinformed? If so, I'll explain it to you.