Win Ben Stein's Money!
Question: Which former speech writer for President Nixon has co-written and starred in a movie titled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed?
Comments
What an asshole.
I think Ben Stein may be headed for a very embarassing fall. Remember I said that.
Ben Stein?
Yeah, Ben Stein, the economics teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” “Anyone, anyone……”
yeah and while were at it add albert einstein and thomas jefferson and a million other great minds to that list.
To what list?
my statements really for a whole different arguement.
are we calling stein an ass because he is for religion in school? or because he might beleive in intelligent design?
if its the second one, then both the guys i mentioned also beleived that something higher then us created the universe and through science and knowledge we can learn to understand the designers plan.
im not for organized religion really, and i find it hard to swallow much God talk or heaven and hell, but ill concede that i also dont have all the answers.
it’s the first one.
Yeah, I’m sure plenty of smart, intelligent people believe that a higher power had a hand in a lot of this stuff (including evolution). It’s ridiculous to want to teach it as science next to scientific theories, hypothesis and facts in the absence of any trace of evidence. I wouldn’t even care about teaching it in a philosophy class or a history class or whatever. But when you want to stand something with absolutely not a single solitary shred of scientific backing next to a scientific theory with supporting evidence and hypothesis and theories to support that evidence then I have an issue.
yeah, thats why i divided the arguement for why steins in asshole into two categories. i could see one, but not the other.
i had a geometry class that went into intelligent design talk everyday. weird stuff.
Derrick said:i had a geometry class that went into intelligent design talk everyday. weird stuff.
That reminds me of the book Flatland.
Personally I believe that religious fundamentalist, who wantonly dismiss volumes of scientific evidence, are small minded. I feel the same way about the people who use those same volumes as “proof” that there is no God. How can a person be so supercilious as to claim to know enough to emphatically state that this planet, and all its wonders, were not created by a superior being or force.
Who is to say that evolution is not a tool of God. Hell, it might be His favorite tool!
I think it’s no more supercilious to claim to know enough that there is no Zeus. When we say we know there is no Zeus, we so say in the realm of common sense; in the realm of knowledge as we understand it, not as in the sense of “what can you truly know.” As soon as you go that route and start talking about what we really know, debate and discussion becomes impossible.
How can you truly know you’re not someone else’s dream? You can’t. But in the context of useful, discussable “knowledge,” you know you are awake because there is evidence that tells you so. You pinch yourself. Rational and logical things are happening. You are not dreaming. Just as I know there is no God because I have the evidence and the context clues that tell me so within the realm of common sense and within the realm of that which is “knowable.”
Of course, if we’re talking Yahweh, that’s a whole different story. I know Yahweh doesn’t exist because Yahweh is a contradictory being— one possessing properties that contradict themselves —like a square circle. A square circle cannot exists, just as Yahweh cannot exist. But that’s beside the point and I guessing you weren’t looking to get into a debate.
Also, to answer Derrick’s question (I’ve kind of been avoiding this thread because I really don’t like being the dude to lay down the atheist smackdown around people I actually like. So I’m trying to do this civilly and not be a jerk about it):
I’m calling him an asshole for both. And while I could write a long diatribe as to why, it has already been done for me by Maggie’s Bill in a rather concise and eloquent fashion:
I have a problem with [Intelligent Design] at all times and in all situations. Because the simple fact that it exists and gets press causes confusion to the general population about what is and is not science. The intelligent design movement is founded on trying to convince the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether or not life evolved when no such debate exists within the scientific community.
All empirical science is based on the scientific method, which everybody learned in 3rd grade. Observation and repeated testing of hypotheses and theories. Intelligent design proponents explicitly seek to change that fundamental basis of science by eliminating methodological naturalism from science and replacing it with “theistic realism” (this has actually been explicitly stated by Phillip Johnson, who is the well-known founder of the ID movement).
That pretty much sums it up for me.
True, I wasn’t looking for a debate, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m simply saying that neither side can claim to know the entire truth (or even most of the truth) about an issue that is so incredibly vast. Yet time and time again we read opinions – from both sides, fancifully spun and stated as fact. Case in point: Maggie’s Bill’s eloquently dismisses intelligent design by attacking the intelligent design movement – a disingenuous guise brought about by the fundamentalist right trying to reintroduce organized religion into public schools. While I believe in intelligent design, I disagree with most of the arguments put forth by the i.d. movement.
And while I have to admit it gave me pause, your argument relies on examples I never referred to, Zeus and Yahweh (although I am curious how it is that you came to see Yahweh as an oxymoron), and semantics, Truly know and really know and “within the realm of that which is “knowable”". The later example being a statement to my original point…The origins of life are not knowable. Not at this time and surely not in our lifetime.
Granted, the idea that some giant “Santa Claus in the sky” created life is difficult to believe – but so is the idea that something somehow sprang to life from some primordial ooze millons of years ago.
By the way, you’re not being a jerk about this, and I hope you don’t think I am. Civil discourse is good. More people should try it.
Absolutely they’re both hard to believe. But as I see it, we’ve got God’s design in this hand and evolution in the other and we hold the evidence for each in respective hands, my evolution hand is going to be under far greater duress than my God hand.
The fundamental problem with the ID movement that Bill and I both have is a lack of evidence. Evolution has had hundreds of years of study mounting volumes upon volumes of empirical evidence. Like any theory, there are holes that we have yet to explain. But such is the case for another famous theory that I believe we all put a great deal of stock in: gravity. The difference here is that the theory is built around the evidence and when new evidence is discovered, the theory is modified. Thus what we end up with is not a belief but a hypothesis; something you can call a relative constant when testing other theories.
Compare this to ID which tries to arrange evidence around a centralized theory, it’s backwards way of doing things and “breaks” scientific method. When Bill rails against the ID organization, he does so as a person who respects millenia of study and research under a fundamental principal, one that ID calls into question because that principal does not allow for faith without evidence.
As for the contradictory nature of Yahweh, I wrote a whole paper on it. Some of the major points are issues like:
- The omnipotent is surprised
- The omnipotent feels emotion (and emotion is a reaction to the previously unknown)
- Perfection begets imperfection
- Perfection feels desire (to create, to love, etc)
And so on.
You seem to have missed my first (actually second) comment in this thread about evolution possibly being a tool of God. Holes notwithstanding, the overall evidence behind evolution is irrefutable. You’ll get no argument from me on that. In fact, I’m not really arguing with you at all. I believe in evolution. I don’t see it as a point of contention. I just cannot understand why more Christians (and other people of faith) don’t consider the possibility that God created the above mentioned primordial ooze and used evolution to mold it.
Right, sorry, I’m used to arguing with bible literalists when it comes to arguing about ID. But that’s the answer as to why more Christians don’t consider the possibility that God created evolution: the bible does not allow for the possibility.
Amen brother!
I don’t think you even need god for the ooze. I think it all comes down to that one instant of the big bang. Everything after that seems (mostly) explainable.
I agree with Evan, Rus, and John, to an extent… but mostly with Evan.
After reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and some of John Allen Paulos’s Innumeracy, I honestly believe the most likely explanation for the existence of you, me, and Hutch’s egocentricity to be the end result of the completely infinite and innumerable permutations of the universe.
I really do believe that we’re just the end result of single permutations, variations on a theme.
But at the same time, I agree with Hutch that Evolution is irrefutable… because we have the science to back it up (unlike the moon landing). Similarly, I can accept Rus’s position that Evolution itself could be perceived as a tool of God, assuming you believe in a God.
I don’t claim to know everything, and I don’t expect that reading Bryson and Paulos will give me a definitive answer, but I’m willing to go on record as saying that I honestly think we’re all just happenstance; we are the random outcomes of mathematics and evolution, whether catalyzed by an omnipresent force or otherwise.
That being said, I also think you should read the two books I mentioned.
Evan said:I don’t think you even need god for the ooze. I think it all comes down to that one instant of the big bang. Everything after that seems (mostly) explainable.
I like where this thought is going. There are some research or science put into everything that happened before us, from the formation of the galaxy to earth’s beginnings to the electrically charged oceans. There is evidence and sound theory that points us all in this direction and, even if we’re wrong, we’re on the right path.
But Big Bang is interesting cause it brings up the idea of a timeline running infinitely in both directions: forever forward and forever back. As human beings, we’re uncomfortable with this notion of No Beginning. And just the same, many of us are uncomfortable even with the idea of having no end. It’s incomprehensible.
And when it comes down to it, The Big Bang Theory, while a sound and reasonable theory— the best we’ve got so far —is still just a guess. And because it’s just a guess, because we really don’t and can’t explain WHY and HOW that baseball-sized hyper condensed matter got there, God becomes the explanation. And that’s where I have a problem.
Throughout human history, God has been the defacto explanation for things we don’t know. “Whoah, shit, fire. How the fuck did that happen? GOD OF FIRE.” “ohhhh my god it finally rained and our crops will survive. God must be looking out for us.” Over time science eventually explained combustion and weather patterns and we didn’t need Gods for those phenomena. But we still have these unknowns out there that we use to prop up our Gods; unknowns like the Big Bang.
So we can’t we all just shrug our shoulders and say “we don’t know! This Big Bang theory thing seems reasonable, but who knows!?” Why must we always turn to some supreme being as the most likely explanation for unknown when, if our three millenia of education and research has taught us, there’s likely a better explanation.
I’m perfectly comfortable saying “I don’t know.” I’m perfectly comfortable putting stock in what is the most reasonable notion we have at the time. But I am not and will never be comfortable with people dreaming up deities to make us feel better about the unknown.
I’m fine with I don’t know. And you always equate any mention from anyone of an unexplainable thing or force or whatever with your hatred of the idea of a tangible creator who does things and makes rules etc.
I’m sure as science advances it will be able to explain more and more, and cover further back to the beginning, of circuity, of existence.
But even if we are in an infinite loop, and theres no creation or end, at least in the time sense (4th dimension?), at some point you have to wonder where the more intangible things, like time, physics, and all that jazz come from.
And don’t assume I mean there was some bearded dude at some finite location, but somewhere, or time, or thing may explain a lot more than science alone could.
Maybe.
And I only use the word god for a lack of a better term.
hey john,
to hit back on the whole people you like talking positively on the god thing: maybe i explained myself wrong, but i said that i found it hard to believe in the whole god idea. what i also pointed out, that you yourself eventually came to is that i dont know what is going on, so i try not to pretend to.
my lines of thinking i think fall close to rus and also evan. i dont really think someone created man because he loves us and so on and so on, because science does show us otherwise, but before i shoot something down because i dont want to entertain the thought of it, i do sometimes wonder if science and god stuff really do go hand in hand, like one explains the other (like evan, im using god for lack of a better term).
i look at the bible and religion and basically consider it a joke, because science and common sense debunk so much, but when i look at science and how certain numerical patterns and math can explain so much, i sometimes have to wonder if that is in fact not entirely coincidental.
i hit on jefferson before because i liked his interpretation of the clock maker god. something that sets the ball of chaos we call existence into motion and then just fades away into the background, letting it be its own thing. ofcourse i also like the theory that we are part of a mathematical loop and sometimes we have this conversation over and over and sometimes its the same and sometimes different. even still i think i like the idea of all of us being part of some computer simulation, not existing as we think we exist, but really as something else (and maybe the ever expanding universe is a newer, cheaper, larger harddrive that our owner just bought). oooh, maybe we are infact a mmorpg. what a boring fucking game that would be (“eat meals, pay taxes, get an education! just like real people!!”)
i mean, really, when entering a conversation with someone about existence related topics, id rather some range of ideas in the talk without a whole section of things being shut out just because. like i think all of us have said here, no one knows either way, so id rather give room for someone with different ideas, just to compare and add them to my own. isnt that the point of this online community?
and finally, id like to point out (in case you havent noticed) that half of derricks crazy talk really is just created because you are so militant in your views that it entertains me greatly to run the opposite way with things.
I’m going to chime in one more time with the top three (of many) specific reasons why I believe in God (or ID): the human hand, a bird’s wing, and sexual reproduction. I just cannot believe these things came about through (as Sammy stated) “happenstance.” Maybe I’m being small-minded now, but I simply can never believe that.
Hey, maybe I’ll start a new thread – The top 3 reasons why I believe (or don’t believe) in God.
Look for it Monday.
Derrick said:
i also like the theory that we are part of a mathematical loop and sometimes we have this conversation over and over and sometimes its the same and sometimes different.
But last time there was a spell check function. Maybe next time, eh, Hutch?
Rus, I think every person on here, even the atheists have reiterated you can believe in science and evolution and everything else that has lots of factual evidence but still believe it’s all the result of the hand of God. It’s just not science. It’s an opinion. It’s faith. Neither of which are science. My parents are as devout a set of catholics as you’re likely to find. They’ve not questioned their belief in a god as creator for a single solitary second in their life and I’m convinced of that. But they also believe that species have evolved over time and they believe in scientific fact and evidence.
Kevin, I’m not sure I understand your point. The atheists, by definition, do not believe anything came about through ‘the hand of God.’ And you, Evan, Derrick, and I seem to agree that evolution is a viable theory, but a higher force is probably in play as well. Maybe my point that evolution and God can “exist” within the same set of beliefs is commonplace in the circles you run in, but in my world this is a unique stance. I’m quite sure that I have never had this discussion with people such as your parents.
What is “your world” if I can ask? If it’s evangelical christianity then yeah I can see that since they’re pretty much the main group pushing this. But as far as I know Catholics are not biblical literalists and can and do believe in evolution. In fact I think recently there was sort of statement or edict from the pope stating that pretty explicitly. I think Episcopalians and Lutherans also have no issue as well. Do you honestly believe that there are no Christians in the worlds of biology and evolutionary science?
And for the record I don’t agree that a higher force is in play as well. I’m just saying that I don’t understand why people who want to push the idea of a creator of the world have to discount evolution any more than someone who wants to believe in evolution has to discount a creator. It seems like a small but vocal group of evangelical christians has made it an either/or scenario. I’m not saying it doesn’t cut across denominations but it’s definitely not the majority of people in the denominations that I mentioned. Maybe in the south but not as a whole.
Admittedly, I don’t bring up the subject much, but it seems that when I do I’m either facing an angry “holier than thou” Christian who considers my acceptance of science as blasphemous or a “smarter than thou” atheist who thinks my belief in God is pure stupidity. Which is why I don’t bring it up very often. You say that a small but vocal group of evangelical Christians has mad it an either/or scenario…well it has been my experience that most people see it that way.
This thread has been very enlightening.
Two interesting bits of news concerning this so-called documentary:
- Dr. PZ Meyers was thrown out of line to see the movie. PZ Meyers is a noted critic of intelligent design and, when his name was spotted on the guest list, he was ejected from line. What’s interesting is that they didn’t notice his guest was the one and only Richard Dawkins.