MOVIE: "Expelled"

[Bean61]

I’ve done further research to once again expose the fraud behind the movie ***Expelled-No Intelligence Allowed *** by locating on it’s official website the following:

Charles Darwin did not write the above! Futhermore, he died in 1882. (I’ve saved a copy of the above from the website just incase they delete it. ) The movie Expelled

Leafblower,
I find your comments difficult to follow. The least you could do is to allow Ben Stein some artistic wherewithall.
There is no university called Big Science.
Everyone knows Charles Darwin died 200 years ago. Everyone knows that Charles Darwin did not write this introductury piece to “Expelled”.
Charles Darwin’s picture and name was used very properly because he’s the one that came out with this ridiculous theory.

Actually I think what you have written is very funny. You should have been a comedian.

 

[foolishmortal]

The persecution part is correct. I and another got it delivered right to us. It was a family therapy course, but they had to throw in the indoctrination (as if how bees are like people and other reasons we are not created specially by God had anything to do with mending families, but it was a Christian school which, like most, wanted to make false peace with atheistic and possibily paganistic naturalists). If you question what is commonly believed, then you must be uninformed or not thinking critically (I know it sounds like a double-standard, but this argument does not apply to those things formally declared as truth by the Church). That thinking helps people feel smart and guards their insecurity. Maybe many Christians are doing that, but so are many defending this theology masquerading as science.

God made the world and his Bible, unless interpreted by the Magisterium to not be literal (not in this case, has a formal declaration been made that rules out understanding Genesis literally on specific topics), has just as much a part to contribute to understanding how He made the world. You also have history, philosophy and what not. Science is beyond the Christian camp (though more in its favor), the atheist/neo-pagan camp, and those making false peace between major end-time nemeses. It’s a way to learn about how the world works.

People are frail and misuse things to make worldviews or mold things to fit their worldviews. Christianity did not do that. The Church had its scientists who did not care what the world thought. However, there were great pagans who did share the idea that the world was created intelligently and was young and they collected manuscripts and such from ancient civilizations. Mistakes can be made by the Church, as they were not defining or expounding formally on a dogma. As it is the Bride of Christ, it definitely does have a contribution to the knowledge of how God made it (even if the PAS doesn’t seem to utilize it, but monkey the worldview that assembles “evidence” in some way).

It seems, starting with with Vatican 2, many of the Church officials has tried to please everyone on anything not screwed down tight by the bolts of dogma (though Pope Benedict has been impressing me).  If we just stuck with the truth about the origins of man (as macro-evolution is pretty much derived from "evidence" gotten how Marian apparitions and bleeding statues get declared ok or worthy to be believed by their "evidence", but don't have to to be a good Catholic--the difference, we can sometimes still see happen what is not proved a hoax or incorrect, like Fatima's messages, its miracles or the spring dug by St./ Bernadette), we could possibly bring in the fundamentalist churches, whose hotheadedness could bring us another St. Paul in the future (the field was ripe), but we instead go to the UN (a Tower of Babel in the making) to try to get peace (when it's only through Christ) and also please those making another church that would be for the age-old nemesis of the Church as it was before that from whence it came, Judaism.  You're worried about Christians who don't know science (but use info. from those who do) confusing people, but miss those who do making a sanhedrin and abusing the laws of science against the people in an arrogant way because, hey, they're not scientists.  You're handing science to "the world" when it belongs to noone.

Even Einstein realized religion and science had to work together to discover the truth. Theistic-evolution could be, but it seems that macro-evolution part has many holes in it (but we can’t argue with scientists…well, those who get the naturalist stamp of approval as a bona-fide scientist. I guess that quote from an evolutionist didn’t convince any of the “reasonable” Christian scientists. This quote from “Ghostbusters” likely won’t, but it’s funny and says so much.

Peter: “Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?”
Library administrator: “What has that got to do with it?”
Peter: “Back off, man. I’m a scientist.”

Maybe I should start my posts on this with “Duh…”, because I’m not a scientist. Maybe journalists covering science should also (except they will be stating the status quo or not questioning their sources). I think this all too familiar attitude from “big science” is what’s alienating and not some soon-to-be forgotten documentary. We’re tired of this attitude from Washington, the U.N. (and their “useful idiots” that write articles for newspapers and newsmagazines that praise them) and from scientists. This is why forums and talk-radio shows are becoming so big. I know it’s all low-brow foolishness, since caller-ins are not politicians, but it’s America.

God bless it! Great nations can make great mistakes, but it really is the best! You can have ideas from the left and from the right and the worst punishment you’ll probably get is a nasty remark. Some might take pictures in dangerous places and get watched, but the forums and talk-radio shows will still run (though I heard rumors of am getting phased-out, but that would also take out many liberal stations as well, so I can’t be sure that is to shut up conservative talk at little expense to left-wingers).

BTW South of Saint Louis, the Kolbe Center is having a free camp-out week for families. I could not find it on the website, but I will e-mail or PM (if that can be done) you the flyer if you PM me. There is limited space! There are N.O. Masses, so it’s not some SSPX or Grunerite conspiracy-fest.

 

[bear06]

Leafblower,
I find your comments difficult to follow. The least you could do is to allow Ben Stein some artistic wherewithall.
There is no university called Big Science.
Everyone knows Charles Darwin died 200 years ago. Everyone knows that Charles Darwin did not write this introductury piece to “Expelled”.
Charles Darwin’s picture and name was used very properly because he’s the one that came out with this ridiculous theory.

Actually I think what you have written is very funny. You should have been a comedian.

You might find it confusing because it’s sarcasm. It was a comedic piece.

I’ve seen the movie and in the last few posts, people do seem quite confused. There is a difference between Darwinism and
Evolution. I don’t think any of the scientists in the movie knocked evolution. They knocked Darwinism. I also don’t think any of them suggested to stop looking at science or to stop looking for answers. And, btw, even Dawkins said there could be an intelligent designer. Ben asked him that question repeatedly because he was shocked. What Dawkins doesn’t believe is that the intelligent designer couldn’t possibly be God. He also mentioned that the intelligent designer probably would have had to have been made by another intelligent designer. Did people actually miss that? Maybe people walked out a little early like one guy did in our showing. Anyways, except for the one scientists who gave a possibility of life being started on the back of crystals (btw, he never gave an explanation of where the crystals came from) not one of the scientists could prove how life started. So, how are they certain how it didn’t start? It’s really rather illogical. There’s far more proof that God exists than life starting on the backs of crystals but that’s completely ignored. Now since someone is sure to ask what that proof is, take a look at the many miracles (things that are absolutely contrary to science) but that still happen such as the sun dancing in the sky (seen by hundreds of thousands). Many of these happenings have been quite studied by scientists. Most start out to disprove and end up believing like the many scientists who have studied Juan Diego’s tilma. Many in the science community are just plain hypocritical. The completely exclude that God can’t exist because they can’t explain him. They ignore one quite credible hypothesis.

Now, for anyone who thinks ID = creationism, Adam and Eve weren’t mentioned at all. ID is quite compatible with evolution (not Darwinism because most things can not be compatible with poor science).

 

[Filius99993]

Hey Kansas is pretty darn awesome. We do have the 8th best education program in the US… it is the US, though… blech.

 

[pnewton]

It just pisses me right off when people screw with education, education is the light of this world, it is the what will save us all. Education I can happily say is my “god”…

There are many that feel this way. And like you any other religion, it should not be foistered on the public. Perhaps when you get older and have children of your own you will understand the defense that parents have when people want to use the force of government to mold the mind of your child. Your use of the pseudo-word “pown” speaks volumes.

 

[bear06]

Hi Bear,
Very interesting comments!
If you could say it in 50 words or less, what is the difference between Darwinism and Evolution?

50 words or less?! I’m not sure I can do this but let me give it some thought.

Something that was noted in the movie is that there can be an evolving within a species. I don’t think too many scientists argue this. In other words, humans do adapt to their environment over time but we don’t go from ape to man which is what Darwin thought.

 

[Bean61]

50 words or less?! I’m not sure I can do this but let me give it some thought.

Something that was noted in the movie is that there can be an evolving within a species. I don’t think too many scientists argue this. In other words, humans do adapt to their environment over time but we don’t go from ape to man which is what Darwin thought.

This is the way that I understand it also.

I like to use dogs as an explanation:
Wolves were supposed to be the original of the canines. We have little chiwawas and everything between them and wolves. Yet, they are all called dogs.

 

[Bean61]

jwu, this is an interesting post. Mutual alienation is something I fear: (1) religious believers who don’t understand science and are turned off from it by the distortions in Expelled’; (2) non-theists who haven’t a clue why religion is important to believers, and who persist in making absurd statements about religion. My organization is working to address this lack of communication between alienated parties.

Petrus

Petrus,
I don’t know if you are a snob in reality, but you sound like one.
Religious believers who don’t understand science are just like everyone else who don’t understand science.

Non-theist should have a smidgeon of an idea why religion is important to others. If not, why would they be non-theist.

 

[drpmjhess]

In other words, humans do adapt to their environment over time but we don’t go from ape to man which is what Darwin thought.

Darwin never said this. You need to learn about the theory of descent with modification!

 

[drpmjhess]

Petrus,I don’t know if you are a snob in reality, but you sound like one…

Why? Because I spell check my posts, or because I use four-syllable words? I’m sorry if either one offends you.

 

[drpmjhess]

Why? Because I spell check my posts, or because I use four-syllable words? I’m sorry if either one offends you.

It’s a curious fact, and I don’t know what conclusion to draw from it, but most of the posts on Catholic Answers that are filled with embarrassing misspellings, grammatical catastrophes, and stylistic problems so serious that they obscure the author’s meaning, are posts by Creationists or IDers. Is this a mere coincidence, or might there be a causal connection?

 

[bear06]

Are you trying to say that Darwin didn’t believe that men descended from apes and that apes were the progenitors of man?

Try to investigate more than “Origin of the Species”. He unequivocally states that apes are the progenitors of man. These theories came about through his observation of “Jenny”. You might want to research her if you haven’t heard of her.

Darwin suggested that humans evolved in Africa from apes via natural selection. He, of course, was wrong or, at best, has never been proven to be right. In other words, scientists have yet to find proof of this theory.

I’d suggest reading the “Descent of Man and the Expression” and “The Expressions of Emotion in Man and Animals” to see where Darwin ended up.

 

[drpmjhess]

Are you trying to say that Darwin didn’t believe that men descended from apes and that apes were the progenitors of man?.

Apes were not the progenitors of humans; rather Humans and apes descended from common ancestor. In the eight million years since the earliest ancestors of humans diverged from the apes, at least a dozen hominid species have lived on earth. Check out the fascinating Understanding Evolution web site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Petrus

 

[bear06]

Apes were not the progenitors of humans; rather Humans and apes descended from common ancestor. In the eight million years since the earliest ancestors of humans diverged from the apes, at least a dozen hominid species have lived on earth. Check out the fascinating Understanding Evolution web site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Petrus

I hate to tell the authors of Evolution 101 but they’ve got Darwin’s theory wrong. Remember, this is about Darwin, not Berkeley’s theories.

From Darwin’s Descent of Man pg. 181:

The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded

But a naturalist would undoubtedly have ranked as an ape or a monkey, an ancient form which possessed many characters common to the Catarrhine and Platyrrhine monkeys, other characters in an intermediate condition, and some few, perhaps, distinct from those now found in either group. And as man from a genealogical point of view belongs to the Catarrhine or Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated

 

[drpmjhess]

I hate to tell the authors of Evolution 101 but they’ve got Darwin’s theory wrong. Remember, this is about Darwin, not Berkeley’s theories.From Darwin’s Descent of Man pg. 181:

That’s irrelevant, except to historians. I’m interested in what ongoing biological, paleontological, and genetic research shows about the shared ancestry of humans and other species.

 

[bear06]

Apes were not the progenitors of humans; rather Humans and apes descended from common ancestor. In the eight million years since the earliest ancestors of humans diverged from the apes, at least a dozen hominid species have lived on earth. Check out the fascinating Understanding Evolution web site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Petrus

I hate to tell the authors of Evolution 101 but they’ve got Darwin’s theory wrong. Remember, this is about Darwin, not Berkeley’s theories.

From Darwin’s Descent of Man pg. 181:

The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded

But a naturalist would undoubtedly have ranked as an ape or a monkey, an ancient form which possessed many characters common to the Catarrhine and Platyrrhine monkeys, other characters in an intermediate condition, and some few, perhaps, distinct from those now found in either group. And as man from a genealogical point of view belongs to the Catarrhine or Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated

 

[bear06]

That’s irrelevant, except to historians. I’m interested in what ongoing biological, paleontological, and genetic research shows about the shared ancestry of humans and other species.

I believe you were the one who said:

Darwin never said this.

And what evidence do you have for a “shared ancestry of humans and other species”?

 

[drpmjhess]

And what evidence do you have for a “shared ancestry of humans and other species”?

There are 100,000 or so working evolutionary biologists, with many others in allied disciplines such as genetics and paleontology. All work with evolutionary theory to some degree. Physical anthropologists like their colleagues continue to enrich our understanding of human ancestry shared with the rest of life on the planet. I could provide you with many links, but you wouldn’t read the material anyway, so there is no point.

 

[foolishmortal]

My “What does it matter” was more to the pro-evolutionists. We who are against it know what evolution can be when it, without God, is declared fact in school. It means to students, who don’t have a devout Christian background, that any Bible story could be declared a story divorced from fact. Drpmjhess may not lose his faith over his belief in evolution, but it is the natural result. Then, we’ll have the Roman Empire conquering nations under one flag (oh, wait, that’s the UN and similar groups playing “Risk” with ntions’ sovereignty with the help of world leaders who trust little in God’s peace) and we’ll have the Pontius Pilates asking, “What is Truth?” (i.e. life is getting by without not getting killed in the name of justice and truth).

Imagine all the temperaments unchained by human charity because ape to man is what is taught as “truth”, as opposed to Genesis. Nero probably was mostly a choleric (though absolute earthly power can change any person) and Pontius, a phlegmatic. We had some crazy crusaders not acting under the Pope, who went off killing Jews as well as Muslims, but those are people not acting according to their faith. Catholic royalty and the Church did some torturing and executions, but there was a kingdom to keep intact and the Church had souls to save from intentional troublemakers (I’m not condoning all cases, though I heard that Queen Isabella is a saint and I understand that the Church executed less people than they did).

For these reasons, I would rather have creation taught as what happened than evolution as evolution has been arrived at only in the way that apparitions and weeping statues are, that it’s a possibility, whereas Genesis, being a canonical book and free of errors, has a more likely chance at being historical. Maybe neither theory should be in a science class as neither are proven historically or scientifically true to the point one should be a heretic for disagreeing.

I ask this of the evolutionists: Is it worth it that, hypothetically-speaking, macro-evolution my have a high probability of being true if something that’s not even proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, would result in something like the 20th century’s horrors of its wars and the destruction of unborn and “brain-dead”, except worse, under a world run by pantheists and atheists (whereas, before, most still considered themselves Christian)? Is evolution that freakin’ important to you all? It’s not 100% truth and yet students are made to believe it is to the point that Genesis is only as good as a bedtime story to teach some values. What a crock! What’s next? Jesus used hypnosis to make the blind see and the deaf hear? We saw what happened in the 20th century, by the Japanese during WW2 by the Roman Empire and how it was far worse than anything done by any theocracies that believe in God. All these people believed themselves to be higher people than others, whereas Jesus taught the lowest are usually our better-offs (except for ones that live for today).

Everything does not have to be understood by human reason and logic. One little error can cause people to see “evidence” in a wrong way and make square pegs fit into round holes. If it’s not creationism that is proven by creationist videos, it’s at least the holes in macro-evolution that are exposed. If we had weeping statues of Mary that had so many holes in them, we’d be the laughingstocks of Christendom! We, however, have scientists study these statues. We don’t say that it’s faith and has no room for science. Christianity has used science and very well, I might add, long before the Galileo situation which, like I said, had something other to do than what he is said to have been accused. But then the esteemed Discovery Channel will say the poor astrologer Nostradamus, was in hiding from the Church, when he had a pope as a friend. It’s interesting to see the big picture when it comes to who’s running science in society. Someone like Ben Stein is qualified enough for that.

 

[foolishmortal]

I shouldn’t call theistic-evolutionists “useful idiots”, the term used by Stalin for those who promoted communism, thinking it was for the poor (I think that’s why he accused them of that as communism was really a nemesis of the Church as was revolutions against the Holy Roman Empire for any reason), but I used it to indicate well-meaning people who just don’t get that they are being used just as Einstein thought he was serving mankind by splitting the atom (but it went right to government warfare). I’m sure there are professors who are fellow travelers, though.

I wonder what evolution is being used for. Oh wait…we found that out last century–revolution against the Catholic Church. As we learned from Piltdown Man, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. If you indoctrinate people, esp. the little ones, in it and then you let up on the fear factor by “ending” communism and give them a capitalism fantasyland afterwards, you’ve deadened their souls. Then, they can spread the disease in poetry, pop songs, movies, and, of course, academia, where their catechism/bible/torah is taught to a new generation and all dissenters must shut their lips (just what the atheists hated about their schooling, they did and do when they run schools). I think a religion teacher should be able to defend their faith in order to teach Catechism and/or Bible study or Torah lessons, for Jews, and allow students to ask tough questions.

Well, the latter is true because, in honor of false ecumenism, Catholic elementary and high-schools hire Protestant teachers because they know the subject if it’s not religious ed. and hire any ol’ person who is baptized Catholic for who knows what reason. I love Latin Masses, but I could see them go if bishops would check out (via an unknown plant) liturgies at parish and school Masses and the faith of teachers who are teaching our kids so the Masses are in tune with form and matter and reverence at Mass and teachers are 100% with the teachings of the Church. I’m sure reformed Protestant and Jewish schools and services have these problems too, except for matter and form with the Protestants. Not suing the pants off a bad Catholic university in your diocese, I think, is deplorable for a bishop. But I kind of digress, except that you might as well teach the kids macroevolution and other godlessly explained wonders of our world if they are being taught by liberation theologists and confused by the ‘60s people of their own religion in religious schools. I heard the statistics which, like evolution, can be evidence for one thing fit like a square peg into a round hole of a conclusion that came from a non-religious source, that was come to by survey of teachers’ beliefs in this or that in just Catholic schools. Yikes! People are fallen though.

Before you know it, these kids raised on evolution as a fact and who knows what else in the Bible probably isn’t will be fighting for a new pax Romanus under the U.N. instead of a pax Christi under its arch-nemesis, the Catholic Church (I wish our recent popes would see the futility of having anything to do with them as there is a likely reason, I believe the one I just mentioned, they don’t come to the Pope for help with peace in the world). Protestants who lose faith in the Bible will be totally gone bye-bye.

Is evolution being taught, to the exclusion of other theories or to questioning of evolution, that important t theistic evolutionists? I can imagine how important it is to pantheists and atheists.