My wife and I watched Expelled the Movie by Ben Stein this weekend. Here’s the movie trailer if you’re not familiar with it:
I thought it was a very well put together documentary about how the science community suppresses scientists and educators who believe in Intelligent Design. I have seen this happen first hand and it is incredibly disturbing. I always thought that the scientific and education community was the last place where any idea could be heard and studied.
In the movie, one of the scientists, Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, states, among many other things, that evolution is fact. I had always thought it was the “Theory of Evolution”. Now I guess it is a fact.
Well, there are some disturbing effects that come from believing in evolution. The path is:
- If life began and evolved from a single cell, then there’s no God (or God doesn’t care)
- If there’s no God, then morality is not absolute
- Human life is not special
- Your life is not important
That path of reasoning was confirmed by the evolution scientists that Mr. Stein interviewed. You can watch the movie and see the progression yourself. And truly if there is no God, I would be right there with them. I would be too selfish to think that anyone else’s life is special. My goal would be to get as much (pleasure, fun, stuff, etc…) as I could and who cares about anyone else. If a world leader believes those things, then you get pure evil because one person’s life (or a million people) is simply not valuable.
Well Mr. Dawkins, the truth is that whether you want to believe it or not, God loves you and has a plan for your life. He created you with a purpose and His hope for you is that you would call on his name because you know, when no one else is around, that your life is missing something. Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t make God not real.
I will go to my grave believing that everything on the earth and in the sky was made in 6 days, that all human life has meaning and was created with a purpose. If that makes me superstitious, uneducated and not worthy to be part of the discussion, so be it.
Heaven Holds My Heart 
One of my favorite “snipets” on PowerFM is the Creation Moments segment, where every day they present Creation Science examples as proof against evolution. For example, today’s is titled “There is no Simple Life” and you can hear it here. It talks about how even single cell creatures are highly complex organisms.
There are over 800 articles/examples in the archive, grouped by category, or you can search for a specific example.
Will,
I just listened to that segment that you linked to. The movie touches on that too. They stated that when Darwin created his thesis, the cell was the smallest thing we could see and it seemed like a “simple” organism. But, its true that cells are incredibly complex creatures and unique.
When I start thinking about life and how cells in our bodies work together, it just overwhelms me.
Thanks for that link, I’ll check out the archive.
I suggest you have a look at http://www.expelledexposed.com which rather shows the Expelled narrative to be false, from the now discredited examples of supposed discrimination to pointing out a lot of the sheer falsehoods that it used.
How dare you devalue human life by claiming that human life is only special because of God? The very idea that a god is required for a life to have meaning and value is abhorrant to me.
You are seriously misguided. It really saddens me to see people so brainwashed.
Expelled is a fraud and Ben Stein is an ignorant buffoon. I will second Matt’s recommendation that the reader see: http://www.expelledexposed.com/
Matt and Dave,
I really appreciate you guys finding and reading my post. Believe me when I say I am no an expert in the area of science. I will check out the website you have linked to.
If I remember the movie correctly, the comments made by the Darwinian scientists proved to me they viewed human life as an accident without purpose. To me, that devalues human life.
We live off of two different paradigms because I do believe that my human life is only special because of my relationship with God.
I also do not like Creation scientists hiding behind the cloak of “Intelligent Design”. I wish they would just come out and say that they believe that a loving God created the world.
I think the premise of the movie is to allow these scientists to not be blackballed. And I have seen this personally. I certainly don’t know the personal stories of the people depicted in the movie. But, I know people who are afraid to speak out and others who have been reprimanded who have.
What is the scientific community afraid of? Especially if you’re right.
Just a question for you two, when did the Theory of Evolution become a fact? I’m seriously asking. If you check back and see this, I’d love for one of you guys to answer.
What is the scientific community afraid of? Especially if you’re right.
The scientific community isn’t ‘afraid’ of ID or creationism.
It’s tired of having to continually refute the same points time and again, which is a waste of scarce time and scarcer resources. It’s simply tired of non-scientific things (such as ID and creationism, again) trying to force themselves into science.
Just a question for you two, when did the Theory of Evolution become a fact? I’m seriously asking. If you check back and see this, I’d love for one of you guys to answer.
The Theory of Evolution is as proven as any other scientific theory; such as Relativity, Germs, Gravity, Electricity, etc.
It’s as proven as it gets.
I know this will not convince you and I’m not trying to. I just don’t think creation and science are mutually exclusive.
But the problem is we are working off two different world views that ARE mutually exclusive. Creationism or ID cannot be mixed with Evolution. My wish is that the creation scientists can find funding to do their research independent of the other entities that normally provide funding.
It does take a great deal of energy to continually have to explain your views time and again. But, that is what fuels the fire for the Evangelical church on a weekly basis. We are happy to do it because that is our calling – to bring people closer to God.
Thanks again for checking in and answering my question. You are welcome to visit my site anytime and comment away. You and I will have to disagree on this. One of us is right and I, of course, hope it is me. If you are right, this world has no value.
If you are right, this world has no value.
That’s something else you are wrong about then.
There are many good resources that explain why evolution is considered both a fact and a theory. In a nutshell; the theory of evolution is what explains the fact of evolution.
Here’s a good starting place for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact
Value is a human concept. Something only has value if there is a conscious entity to give it value. Value is also relative. I may value some old crappy car because it has sentimental value. Someone else might take the same car and discard it completely.
Human (or non-human) lives have value only because we give them value. I value my life. My loved ones value my life. I value the lives of others. Given that there are billions of people in the world who all hold their lives to have value and meaning (and the lives of others) does that not give our lives enough value? Do you really need a god to give your life value or is that simply something you were taught to believe?
The things that religous people believe are often there simply to help perpetuate their religion. The idea that faith (as in belief without evidence) is a virtue is something that nobody outside of religion would claim. Why would belief without evidence be a good thing? Shouldn’t a belief be based on something in reality and not just something that you were taught to believe and have no evidence for? The idea that life only has meaning if God exists is another religious meme that has no basis in reality. We don’t need a god to love us for our lives to have value. Especially when there is no credible evidence to suggest that such an entity even exists, let alone one that cares about our lives.
Religion is a set of ideas and concepts that serve to perpetuate that religion. Otherwise, that religion would go extinct (as most religions already have). What we are left with are a set of religions that are very good at perpetuating themselves despite the harm they actually do to their followers and the general public. The fact that religious belief is practically required to hold any public office (this requirement is written into the constitution in many states) shows that we still have very far to go in society. The fact that people would rather elect someone because of their religious belief over their actual merits is why we had Bush for 8 years. Look how well that turned out!
Many devoutly religious people rally against science like it is the worst thing that humans ever came up with. Of course, they have no problem reaping the many rewards of science. There are very few aspects of life that are not improved by science. Instead of living 30 years, we now live for over 70 years. We don’t have to suffer due to many now curable illnesses. We can visit other parts of the world on airplanes and communicate with people nearly instantly across the globe. These are all things that science brought us.
Now you have people like Ben Stein who are actively trying to subvert science and interject religious concepts like Intelligent Design into our science curriculums. What has ID brought us so far? They can’t even formulate a theory behind ID other than the idea that some things appear to complex to have evolved therefore, God must have done it. What do we gain from that? Can new vaccines be developed that take into account the fact that bacteria and viruses mutate? Can we find a cure for cancer? ID does absolutely nothing for us scientifically, even if it were true.
In my opinion, ID is being pushed in public schools simply to keep people who already believe in God from turning into atheists after they learn that what they were taught about how life came to be (God did it) was wrong. By planting the seeds of doubt against evolution, it is thought that evolution won’t be as much of an influence and won’t turn as many religious people into atheists. This is a stop-loss strategy and not a strategy for turning agnostics into theists.
Gentlemen, I humbly thank you again for taking the time to comment on my blog. I truly am not worthy of this, but appreciate the conversation.
As far as human value goes, what if a human is deemed more valuable dead than alive? Such as to harvest embryonic stem cells to keep another human alive? Dave, you stated that value is relative. If it is relative, who gets to make the decision? I believe there needs to be a certain structure that is even larger than culture that dictates right and wrong.
As far as religion, I agree that there are many people that “do” religion because that is what they do and it perpetuates itself with no apparent benefit to humanity. I could not be part of a group like that. In fact, you will find that most Evangelical Christians do not like the term religion because it takes the personal relationship that we have with God out of the equation and reduces it to a mere set of rote traditions.
However, as I don’t throw away the good that science does, don’t throw away the good that religious organizations do. Most hospitals were started by religious groups, many starving people in 3rd world nations are fed and given medical care by religious groups. My company just finished constructing a multi family home for single mothers – we were hired by a religious group to build it.
I also do not in any way deny the advances that we enjoy by science. I’m communicating to you through a multitude of scientific/technological advances. Science is amazing and the human brain is amazing to me. I’m extremely grateful to be alive in this time.
There are, however, so many things that science can not explain. There are people that shouldn’t be alive that science had given up on, yet, they are alive and well.
This is getting too long but I hope you guys will check back as I will also check your blogs too.
Feel free to keep commenting.
Thanks again,
Jim
First, I have not seen the movie, but I need to comment on some of the positions and statements Matt and Dave have made.
Religion is simply the set of beliefs and practices held by a certain group, the Christian religion, or the Islamic religion. I agree with Jim on this one – I don’t like the “term” religion because my relationship with God is personal, not because I “must” do or say certain things. I must disagree with the statement that most religions have already gone extinct.
Science is about understanding the “why’s” and “how’s” behind something – figuring out the nuts and bolts that make something work. Science likes knowns and tangibles, not unknowns or beliefs based upon faith. On the Evolution page of the “exposed” website, it mentions that “Expelled confuses the debates…with a nonexistent dispute about whether evolution occurred.” That statement automatically assumes evolution has occured, thus the ID belief is only out to confuse. Again, I agree with Jim that basically, evolution and ID are mutually exclusive – both views cannot be held be an individual as they sharply contrast. I am thankful for the many scientific results that have improved our current quality of life – virtually eliminating many diseases like polio, for example.
There are scientific examples that back up the Bible – sedimentary levels that support the great flood, etc.
There are examples against elovution, too. Consider the supposed 17-20million year old magnolia leaf, or insects found in amber, whose DNA are almost identical to the modern varieties. Per evolution theory, over that period of time, some significant changes should have been observed between the modern and ancient species.
Is it any coincidence that the site you both reference, Expelled Exposed, is published by the National Center for Science Education, whose head, Eugenie Scott, was interviewed for what they believed to be a pro-science film? Matt talks about wasting time and resources to fight ID, but clearly, time and resources are being thrown to counter the Expelled movie.
But I will close with these two questions. Do you know specifically why you believe in evolution? Can you afford to be wrong?
There are scientific examples that back up the Bible – sedimentary levels that support the great flood, etc.
Really, no there’s not. Any sort of global flood is simply impossible and there’s no evidence to support it at all. Similarly, not one person has been able to present a model which would allow for that much water to appear (from either above or below) that would not have turned the planet into a seething mass of steam at the very least.
While a more localised flood around the black sea area is possible, a global style flood is not.
There are examples against elovution, too. Consider the supposed 17-20million year old magnolia leaf
talkorigins.org has dealt with that one long ago:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html
or insects found in amber, whose DNA are almost identical to the modern varieties.
See talkorigins.org again. Normally I don’t like linking to resources/web sites like this but;
a) I’m a tad pressed for time right now
b) talkorigins is fully referenced and highly regarded by the scientific community, therefore counts as a solid resource for research findings.
Is it any coincidence that the site you both reference, Expelled Exposed, is published by the National Center for Science Education, whose head, Eugenie Scott, was interviewed for what they believed to be a pro-science film?
Yes, which says a great deal about the ethics of the creative team of ‘Expelled’, I believe.
Matt talks about wasting time and resources to fight ID, but clearly, time and resources are being thrown to counter the Expelled movie.
Which validates my point entirely. Expelled came out spouting things which were demonstratably false; rather than let such statements stand, they decided that they should be combated.
Which should not have been necessary in the first place but certain people behind ‘Expelled’ decided that such concepts as ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ were optional extras.
But I will close with these two questions. Do you know specifically why you believe in evolution?
It’s what the evidence squarely points to.
Can you afford to be wrong?
Is this an attempt at appealing to Pascal’s Wager? That line of argument hasn’t held any weight for, quite literally, centuries.