i’m sorry, but not saying anything about this is simply not possible.
this weekend, the movie expelled: no intelligence allowed comes to theatres around the country. i’ve been subjected to ads for it on some of my favorite programs (jon stewart, colbert), and even as a sponsor of a political podcast on national public radio.
every time i see this i want to wretch. thankfully, it would seem no one with half a brain actually likes this movie, and that’s a rare point to our nation’s credit. but what makes me angry is that this even exists.
yes, i know free speech and free thought are our rights as americans, and i would never argue otherwise. but if i were to make a movie about how AIDS is a disease visited upon humans as punishment for open homosexuality in america, it would amount to about as valid an argument as the one that says intelligent design should be part of school curriculum. it’s rampantly false, anti-intellectual and stands for everything that’s wrong about the religious right.
i know religious people; all of the ones i know personally are not stupid. how hard is it for faith to live peacefully alongside the theory of evolution, that someone would insist their children be taught ‘the other side of the argument’ in a SCIENCE class? a place where the entire point is there is no other side, because it’s not an argument.
here’s your lesson plan:
–evolution is a fact based on hundreds of years of scientific testing.
–it works over vast periods of time when random mutations beget superior traits, and natural selection occurs.
–(optional for kansas, wyoming et al) allow those with strong religious aversions to anything being a matter of chance and not god’s will to substitute the words “divinely guided” for “random”. teach the rest as is, and voila! evolution IS god’s handywork, and everybody wins!
i’ve actually seen the movie, and maybe you should watch it before you judge so harshly. perhaps not all the ideas are spot on, but your post just called me an idiot because i happen to be against firing people for challening a theory, and against some of those crazy Darwinists. just wanted you to know i don’t really appreciate being called stupid for my beliefs. sorry brother
i don’t know, i’m open to seeing the movie, but any argument that involves calling people ‘crazy darwinists’ is a little tenuous… evolution isn’t a faith-based ‘belief’, it’s demonstrated science. questioning things is awesome; in fact it’s scientific. that’s how we all get smarter. but you have to question fairly — do the advocates in the movie challenge intelligent design as rigorously as they do darwinism? i’ll have to see, but i assume they do not.
it’s not even that the movie is against evolution, it’s against people being condemned for believing in a higher power having something to do with the entire idea of creation. evolution can be the work of God, even with scientific backing. the movie is about the persecution of people who believe that and the people who are SO close-minded to not even allow the theory of intelligent design to exist in the scientific universe.
nohting like a little sibbling shouting match. Bet you didn’t expect your sister to comment on you calling her an idiot. Its a good thing I don’t really care either way because life is to short to give a shit about where humans thousands of years ago came from. Or where Humans thousands of years from now will end up. I hope we’ll be able to fly like birds, or angels.
no one’s shouting. i’m not a shouter.
i’m not shouting either. just quietly disagreeing with you hating my ideals. glad kevin can be the neutral one in the family non-arguments.
oh man oh man oh man this is great. can I come to the next Longtin Family get together?
Its hard to tell on a screen what shouting is. Its so much fun that none of us share the same beliefs. And that you guys are passionate about your beliefs. I think our parents did a great job in finally letting us decide. Thanks mom and Dad!
haha, good call kev.
and hey, i don’t hate anyone’s ideals. i mean, from what i understand they are the christian philosophies of compassion for others, which are ideals i share, christian or not.
but the belief of teaching non-science alongside science i’m very much against, that’s all. you can read, teach, believe whatever you want in church, but it’s weird and a little misguided to force it into public schools and scientific publications that should be all about facts, not faiths.
Most Christians in science (as opposed to Christian scientists) and Christian laypeople believe in a concept called Theistic Evolution. This approach says that God created the Earth and that evolution is an extension of His processes, and does not attempt to argue against evolution, a tested and proven hypothesis. This is what the average churchgoer believes.
On the other hand, intelligent design is a small, SMALL, fringe movement attempting to maintain Biblical literalism, despite the fact that scientifically, and historically, this is fairly impossible. While I have not seen Expelled yet, I believe that, through skillful manipulation, it is uniting Christians behind a pseudo-scientific theory that most of them would actually disagree with.
Should people advocating scientific concepts that are disagreed with be thrown out of academia and science? No. Should people supplying no evidence and disputing PROVEN and testable scientific concepts be thrown out of academia? Probably. That is the distinction that I see. Additionally, most of the claims made in the movie with regards to the damage to the careers of the intelligent design supporters have been exaggerated. This isn’t a war on Christianity; it’s a war on bad science.