In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, "How did life begin?" One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labrynthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code.
Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. Moreover, the earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years and the first traces of life have already been found at some 3.5 billion years ago. This is just what we have discovered: it's quite possible that life existed on earth even earlier. What this means is that, within the scope of evolutionary time, life appeared on earth very quickly after the earth itself was formed. Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer?
It is ridiculously implausible to think so. And the absurdity was recognized more than a decade ago by Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the DNA double helix. Yet Crick is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let's call this the "ET" explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins belives in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can't. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. Dawkins can't bear the supernatural explanation and so he opts for ET. But doesn't it take as much, or more, faith to believe in extraterrestrial biology majors depositing life on earth than it does to believe in a transcendent creator?
Reader Comments ( Page 52 of 53)
766. Amazing the extent that so-called "Christians" and "Intelligent Design" proponents will go in "baring false witness".....
#763 - "Christians use the "earth is 6,000 years old" nonsense all the time in their lame effort to discount the best scientific theory we have - evolution - because they can't come up with a more plausible theory other than a self-created "all creator" or fairy in the sky. One Christian I debated with went further - she said that the the earth is not only 6,000 years old, but her conclusion was absolute and she had a "280 IQ to back it up." She went on to assert that "Whites were smarter than Asians" and a lot of other racists generalizations. Not that IQ nor race would make a statement correct or not, Bobby Fischer had a very high IQ, but would score very low on emotional and social tests, but apparently this "Christian's" IQ was a lie also. The highest ever measured, that I know of, is that of an Asian engineer at 210.
#764 - You're deliberately distorting Dawkin's example - he was clearly stating that if we're going to postulate out of thin air that there is an "Intelligent Designer" we may as well claim anything out of thin air - Aliens, Raccoons from Mars, A lonely old wizard who got tired of floating in the universe for zillions of years by himself, and all such other nonsensical fairy tales.
TerryMadison at 6:24PM on Apr 24th 2008
767. Understanding that God exists is one thing, but knowing Him personally is another matter.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com/#the_message_that_we_were_born_to_hear
AN ATHEIST NO MORE at 7:05PM on Apr 24th 2008
768. #765 - Former Athiest, you and proxy, #766 - "An Atheist no more" continue to use lies and deception in order to convert others to your baseless beliefs.
Of hundreds of Atheists I've met, including Dawkins, I know of not one who believe sthat aliens created life. By definition, someone who would hold such a "belief" would NOT be an atheist by default. To conclude anything created us (which even Darwin never did) would be Religious - because it would be a conclusion based on "belief" not facts, akin to Scientology and hundreds of other religious sects and cults.
An atheist, including Dawkins would ask: If you think an Alien (or god, or a fairy, etc.) created life - what created the creator ? Religionists don't ask this - they just assert that there is a creator and that their assertion is properly asserted and that's all there is to assert. Of course, an assertion never makes anything true in and of itself. Reasonable people require evidence, peer review and critical feedback.
Instead, you continue to deliberately distort Dawkins' example - he was clearly stating that if we're going to postulate out of thin air that there is an "Intelligent Designer" we may as well claim anything out of thin air - Aliens, Raccoons from Mars, A lonely old wizard who got tired of floating in the universe for zillions of years by himself, and all such other nonsensical fairy tales.
TerryMadison at 7:28PM on Apr 24th 2008
769. Most Christians still don't get it - Knowledge is not about personal *belief* - either I *know* something based on evidence or I suspend judgment until reasonable evidence is brought to light. The odds of some fairy tale "creator" creating itself after floating around for zillions of light years is *zero* - If you can prove otherwise, give your evidence - until then, millions of transitional fossils, microbiology and studies of genetic mutation give the plenty of evidence that life evolved from simple DNA to simple cells to more complex organism.
By definition no Atheist "believes" we are the product of "extraterrestrial engineering" - that would be a religion, one of about 3,000 religions found on earth - I just happen to an atheist to one less god than a Christian is, unless it's a Christian who believes in Venus, Mercury, Thor, Krishna, Allah, Mormon and the many other gods found in thousands of cultures.
If Christians here are referring to Dawkins citation of "aliens", and I think some are because many Christians have distorted what he said. He clearly indicated that if we believe in one god without evidence, we may as well believe aliens created us, or a fairy, a magic father or hundreds of other simple notions - all of which make as much sense as a self-created "god" who created its own "intelligence" but did nothing with it for over ten billion light years. I know a drug addicted homeless Veteran who claims that god is a pink salamander living on the dark side of Mars. Can Christians prove him wrong?
If you make a claim for a god, its not up to rationale people to prove you wrong, its up to you to prove that you are correct - for you are making the assertion. So far, no one has proven anything about god except ancient biblical fairy tales, more lies and attacks on other philosophies which have nothing to do with their own god-assertions.
If anything, Dinesh D'Sousa gives atheism more support, because instead of attacking atheist premises, he consistently attacks them personally with the type of name-calling often heard in grade school. If his Jesus were around today, from what I read about him, surely he would not approve.
LindaL at 11:58PM on Apr 24th 2008
770. Need to go all the way back to 429 here: "No, it’s not as simple as that. The root or basis of morality is not based upon the “Golden Rule,” but what an absolute authority, e.g. God, or whatever name you wish to ascribe to that authority, says it is."
Two problems.
1. To define morality strictly in terms of obedience to what is considered an absolute authority, you must accept the idea that "God told me to" is not only a valid, but a perfect defence of ANY action. (After all, yer absolute authority must be absolutely inscrutable in order to be absolute.)
Thus, the maniac who walks into a kindergarten with an AK-74 and a bandolier of frags and walks out with the blood of 25 innocents on his head... did something perfectly moral if "god" told him to do it.
See the problem?
And two... which version or revision of absolute authority? You decry morality that flows "from man" as being uselessly subjective; but is ascribing it to a god any less so? Which god? Huitzilopochtli? Amaterasu Omikami? Shang-ti? Siva? Even if you say Yah, or Joshua son of Joseph, is that the Mormon Elohim, or the Jehovah of the Witnesses, or Martin Luther's trinity, or the Roman Catholic trinity, or the Orthodox, or the Anabaptists?
It would seem, then, that if morality "from man" is pinned to the strongest prince, morality "from god" is really pinned to the strongest bishop, and thus is not better.
The ethic of reciprocity, however, is the axiom of morality. It doesn't flow from above, nor from below - it is as simple as Newton's law of reaction. Pondering yer action from the perspective of the receiver, and determining whether the action would be beneficial to you as the receiver. This is the core of morality, and the basis of law and order in society. Not a king, nor a bishop; not the alignment of planets before the stars, and not invisible omnicools.
sandslice at 12:10AM on Apr 25th 2008
771. Joseph,
We are about the same. The idea of the universe being designed by an infinitely complex or arbitrary "starting point", or "God" if you will, leaves me feeling like I'm at an anticlimactic cul-de-sac, or perhaps a cliffhanger, or the Sopranos finale. If we trace all creation back to its irreducible origin the answer may not be as simple as we'd like. The universe operates on laws, but we might never understand HOW these laws came to be the way they are. This "HOW" is what I refer to when I speak of "God". As much as I try to think around it I cannot officially declare myself atheist, but rather agnostic or perhaps Spinozan.
Mokele Mbembe at 9:34AM on Apr 25th 2008
772. Keeping things in context: Dinesh D'Souza used to date transsexual plagiarist Anne Coulter. Yikes!
Brandy Spears at 3:27PM on Apr 25th 2008
773. Just because a theory can't explain EVERYTHING doesn't mean it doesn't explain a lot of things. This is a straw man argument. It's silly. No we don't know exactly how life started, but that doesn't mean you jump to any conclusion of how it did and it in no way contradicts with the rest of evolutionary fact.
Presidential Blog at 3:31PM on Apr 25th 2008
774. 770.- Joseph
Right now, conditions on this planet are perfect for life to form and survive (in this environment) ... -- I question the words 'perfect' and 'life to form'. Conditions are
certainly very favorable for life as we know it, to exist. Liquid water, a fairly dense atmosphere, abundance of minerals in the soil, adequate light and heat, plenty of (CHO) Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. The term 'Perfect' would imply any change in any of those variables would render life on Earth impossible. All those variables are within RANGES that are favorable for life. As for 'life to form', it sounds like you're saying life can be formed from the aforementioned CHO. Or perhaps you mean for life to take root, reproduce etc. That's what I'll assume. ~I'm~ not even sure conditions on Earth TODAY could produce life from the basic elemental components of life (CHO)
..however, it was proven that there is no spontaneous genisis of life. -- WHOA!! That has
never been proven one way or the other. You must be VERY CAREFUL using the words 'PROOF' or 'PROVE'. They are only valid in the realm of logic/Math. You can draw reasonably well
supported conclusions, but the dustbins of history are full of 'proven' claims.
As a matter of fact, most of our medicine, sterilization techniques, and remedies rely on
Pasteur's proof. -- From what I gather, Pastuer's experiment was fairly limited, but important nonetheless. It showed that the appearance of previously unseen creatures did not in fact spontaneously appear, but were simply offspring of other creatures, or microscopic, explaining why they weren't seen in the first place. The importance of his experiments was to caution us to be much more careful about our conclusions. To apply stricter and more comprehensive scientific methods to our observations.
Science can not prove nor disprove that a Supreme Being started it all, nor can science prove nor disprove evolution, -- Agreed, the supreme being theory is strictly philosophical. Science can only support or offer a lack of support for such a contention. But actually evolution could be disproved, but the evidence is so overwhelming at this point, that disproving evolution would disprove a lot of what we know about medicine, biology, organic chemistry, geology, and tons of other scientific knowledge that we know can't be wrong because they are the basis of too many things that indeed work.
...because it's not happening right now - sure, variations in species is present, but new or partial species that are vastly different than their parents' are not. --I Disagree. See this post..
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/02/11/the-top-five-arguments-against-evolution/20#c11814564 (#287)
The way science proves and disproves anything is by using the scientific method - dumbed down, it's something like this: See something happen (usually more than once), suggest what makes it happen (give a hypothesis), test and observe the results of your suggestion, present a formal theory, then test and observe in more and more strict experiments until the theory is proved or disproved. -- Well disproved anyway, however on the proven aspect, see my previous point. Again, proof is an elusive ideal relegated to abstractions.
Since, apparantly, the laws of physics have changed since the first life was put here, created here, or just happened here, the scientific method can't be used... therefore, proposing that either method (Creation, Seeding, or Happenstance) will never be answered definitively by man. -- WHOA!!! ...the laws of physics have CHANGED? I need to know the basis of this contention. But I tend to agree that we may never answer definitively a question like this since it happened so long ago.
Ultimately, this IS a matter of faith ... "In the beginning, God...", "In the beginning, Unknown forces", or "In the beginning, ET" ... But we need to consider that, if there is no God, either nature or "ET" was able to overcome physical laws as we know them -- No, those who adhere to scientific methods believe everything has to happen within the known laws of physics, and by extension, chemistry and biology. While CONDITIONS may change, we have no reason to believe that the laws of physics have changed.
... we've been trying to do alchemy for hundreds of years, but haven't been able to do it
-- I'm not sure what you consider by 'alchemy' I suppose the commonly held notion of changing one element into another element, although that is precisely what happens in nuclear fusion and fission.
fabio at 4:22PM on Apr 25th 2008
775. RE: link in my post 774 - Better make that post (#285 - on the previous page)
I really wish the blog master would leave the post numbers intact.
fabio at 5:55PM on Apr 25th 2008
776. Now Dinesh D'Souza is judging someone who has accomplished more for the Christian poor in the past year than D'Souza will probably do in his lifetime - Jimmy Carter.
D'Souza might want to focus more on the three other famous Jimmys, all of whom were devout Christians while committing far greater crimes -
Jimmy Swaggart
Jim Jones
Jimmy Baker
(And that's just the Jims !! )
All three professed to be devout believers in god with a combined following of millions of devout believers in turn, yet Jimmy Swaggert bought prostitutes, Jimmy Jones led a suicide cult of nearly a thousand "believing" Christians to their deaths, and Jimmy Baker went to prison for cheating millions out of their money.
Now we have the christians in El Dorado, Texas with their pedophilia and millions of muslims shouting "god is great" while shouting "death to America". D'nesh can't win his god verses secular humanism arguments so he's taken time out to attack Jimmy Carter.....a man who followed the BETTER tenets of Jesus by doing more than god's poor and weak than Dinesh D'Souza will probably do in a lifetime.
Dinesh D'Souza continues to leave us atheist astonished by breaking his own god's rules:
"Judge not less you be judged", "Do not bare false witness", "love thy neighbor as you would thyself", etc. Instead, D'Souza is busy persecuting gay people, those who subscribe to secular ethics such as Common Law and the Bill of Rights, and anyone who doesn't comport with his wacky positions. In doing so, D'Souza continues to give christianity in specific and faith in general, a bad name.
TerryMadison at 8:17PM on Apr 25th 2008
777. Hey Ben Stein and Dinesh D'Souza, who or what designed your imagined "Intelligent Designer"? We notice neither of you have answered that.
Instead, we see in these forums more circular reasoning and reliance on an ancient book of fairy tales.
As for the continued biblical circular reasoning of the Dinesh defenders, here is a post one of my favorite bloggers (obviously Chris Aable). In the past month, it's received about 60,000 hits on MySpace:
Jesus and *many* similarities to others who came before him.
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Before I begin, let me start with the fact that I'm not telling anyone what to believe or not, (Terry's note, contrary to Ben Stein's lie, no Atheist I know "persecutes" believers, unless you consider voicing alternative points of view "persecution) that's up to each person to reflect on and decide for themselves, hopefully by asking a lot of questions instead of taking things at face value because their elders or community may have long-standing tradition in doing so.
I am not against any study of any religion. To the contrary, as a student of Psychology and Sociology, I've studied many religions passionately at both Los Angeles City College and CSULA, and can often quote the bible better than many of my "Christian" friends can. I've observed that most (not all) religious believers are as relatively nice and compassionate as many of my non-believing friends (There are always "Christian" exceptions such as Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin). In short, I'm not *against* religion as much as I am *for* intellectual honesty.
This post is rather long, but at least a couple of my friends who I consider highly intelligent in many areas agree that this is worth reading for those who value intellectual honesty as opposed to blindly following family or social traditions without question.
If we believe in one god without *real* evidence other than ancient writings and unconfirmed miracles, we may as well believe in all the gods found in hundreds of cultures. The Indians of North and South America have gods very different than the ones found in modern cultures, as do the Muslims, the Mormons, the Catholic's "holy trinity", etc. Indians believed in their gods just as devoutly and earnestly as many "Christians" believe in theirs, and for thousands of years, generation after generation, and in the case of the Greeks, Chinese and Syrians, long before the alleged time of Jesus and Moses.
As LumberJack Jeff notes:
"Writers that lived during Jesus' time (Apollonius, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Persius, and etc) never mentioned Jesus once in their writing. One would assume that a person as significant as Jesus would be found in the works of the most famous writers of his time."
Yet, not only is Jesus not mentioned by the great writers of his time, neither are his twelve "significant" apostles and their interactions with other "significant" characters of the time.
More to the point, if we cannot give ourselves pause to think about where our beliefs come from and why and still believe without question, than not only is such a lifestyle not intellectually honest, it calls into question the honesty of how such a person votes and chooses their future family and friends.
Below this post are some interesting facts posted by my MySpace friend, LumberJackJeff, about Jesus and similarities to a "messiah" who preceded him. I would add that much of what was finally written about Jesus, along with the rest of the "new" testament was written nearly a hundred years after the death of Jesus. Such writings have in turn been rewritten and edited many times.
In the bible, we find written that "god is not the author of confusion, yet even the most learned biblical scholars often find themselves at odds with each other over many different interpretations. Aristotle's ethics were written about 300 years before the time of Jesus and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the biblical writers borrowed heavily from Aristotle while leaving out the best parts about logic and reason, the two enemies of blind faith.
Any bible can be summed up in a page or less. I summarize my religion in just one word:
Kindness. And by that I mean to self and others.
This means real peace, love and understanding. We find in the ancient bibles these things, but along with contradictions advocating slavery, war, stoning people to death, butchering innocent children (the first born of every household), genocide by flood (from a supposedly all-loving, all knowing god who *knew* we would sin), violence from Jesus, "The Prince of Peace", against money lenders (the basis of every civilized economy) etc.
Kindness works, and requires peace, love and understanding. These are very real things, because none of us would be here without them. Children, who by default are *all* born atheists know these things before being indoctrinated with nonsensical "ten commandments" that most Christians I know can't even recite half of. We have to understand the natural human weaknesses and fears from which blind faith and religions are born, and attempt to educate the world about their own psychology and sociology.
"If love means wishing everyone a better world, then I can honestly say I love just about everyone."
- Chris Aable, M.A., author, "What is Self-Evolution?"
From LumberJack Jeff:
If Jesus existed, he must have been the least original person to have ever lived. Almost every portion of his life is similar to countless gods, saviors, and deities before him. The following will outline similarities Jesus has with a number of gods that predate Christianity.
Deities, gods, and etc that have ascended to heaven:
-Adad of Assyria
-Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece
-Alcides of Thebes
-Atys of Phrygia
-Baal and Taut, "the only Begotten of God," of Phoenicia
-Bali of Afghanistan
-Beddru of Japan
-Buddha Sakia of India
-Cadmus of Greece
-Crite of Chaldea
-Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam
-Divine Teacher of Plato
-Fohi and Tien of China
-Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico
-Hesus of Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids
-Hil and Feta of the Mandaites
-Ischy of the Island of Formosa
-Ixion and Quirnus of Rome
-Holy One of Xaca
-Indra of Tibet
-Jao of Nepal
-Krishna of Hindostan
-Mikado of the Sintoos
-Mohammed, or Mahomet, of Arabia
-Odin of the Scandinavians
-Prometheus of Caucasus
-Salivahana of Bermuda
-Thammuz of Syria
-Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls
-Universal Monarch of the Sibyls
-Wittoba of the Bilingonese
-Xamolxis of Thrace
-Zoar of the Bonzes
-Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia
-Zulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus, of Egypt
Now to get a little more particular.
Similarities between Horus and Jesus:
-Horus and the Father are one.
-Jesus says, "I and My Father are one. He that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me."
-Horus is the Father seen in the Son.
-Jesus claims to be the Son in whom the Father is revealed.
-Horus was the light of the world, the light that is represented by the symbolical eye, the sign of salvation.
-Jesus is made to declare that He is the light of the world.
-Horus was the way, the truth, the life by name and in person.
-Jesus is made to assert that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
-Horus was the plant, the shoot, the natzar.
-Jesus is made to say: "I am the true vine."
-Horus says: It is I who traverse the heaven; I go round the Sekhet-Arru (the Elysian Fields); Eternity has been assigned to me without end. Lo! I am heir of endless time and my attribute is eternity.
-Jesus says: " I am come down from Heaven. For this is the will of the Father that everyone who beholdeth the Son and believeth in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (He, too, claims to be lord of eternity.)
-Horus says: " I open the Tuat that I may drive away the darkness."
-Jesus says: " I am come a light unto the world."
-Horus says: I am equipped with thy words O Ra (the father in heaven) and repeat them to those who are deprived of breath. These were the words of the father in heaven.
-Jesus says: " The Father which sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. Whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me."
-Horus baptized with water by Anup the Baptizer
-Jesus Baptized with water by John the Baptist
-Horus born in Annu, the place of bread
-Jesus born in Bethlehem, the house of bread.
-Horus the Good Shepherd with the crook upon his shoulders
-Jesus the Good Shepherd with the lamb or kid upon his shoulder.
-The Seven on board the boat with Horus
-The seven fishers on board the boat with Jesus.
-Horus as the Lamb
-Jesus as the Lamb.
-Horus as the Lion
-Jesus as the Lion.
-Horus identified with the Tat or Cross
-Jesus identified with the Cross.
-Horus the Krst
-Jesus the Christ.
-Horus the manifesting Son of God
-Jesus the manifesting Son of God.
-The trinity of Atum the Father, Horus the Son, and Ra the Holy Spirit
-The trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
-The first Horus as a child of the Virgin, the second as the Son of Ra
-Jesus as the Virgins child, the Christ as Son of the Father.
-Set and Horus contending on the Mount
-Jesus and Satan contending on the Mount.
-The Star as the announcer of the child Horus
-The Star in the East that indicated the birthplace of Jesus.
-Horus as the type of life eternal
-Jesus the type of eternal life.
-Twelve followers of Horus as Har-Khutti
-Twelve followers of Jesus as the twelve disciples.
Similarities between Krishna and Jesus:
-Both are held to be really god incarnate
-Both were incarnated and born of a woman
-The mother in each case was a holy virgin
-The father of each was a carpenter
-Both were of royal decent
-Each had the title of "Savior"
-Both were "without sin"
-Both were crucified
-Both were crucified between two thieves
-Each taught of a great and final day of judgment
-Both are worshiped on December 25th
Similarities between Mithra and Jesus:
-Both are worshipped on December 25th
-Both had twelve disciples
-Both were regarded as "the good shepherd", "the way, the truth, the light", "redeemer", "savior", and "messiah".
-Both identified with the lion and the lamb.
-Both were of virgin birth.
-Both offered eternal life and performed miracles.
-Both sacrificed themselves.
-Both rose from the dead after three days.
Similarities between Dionysus and Jesus:
-Both were worshipped on December 25th.
-Both were of virgin birth
-Both sacrificed themselves
-Both rose from the dead after three days
-Both traveled and performed miracles
-Both regarded as "Savior"
-Both were considered the "King of Kings"
"Please forgive us if we seem 'obtuse'. Sometimes it's best to communicate simply about very complex psychological matters." - Terry Madison
TerryMadison at 10:37PM on Apr 27th 2008
778. Richard Dawkins hung himself in the Expelled movie, and, I must say, he did it rather eloquently in which he goes round and round in a silly circular dialogue near the end of the movie.
What an embarrassment to Atheism! All Ben did was ask him questions and the idiot didn't even realize he was showing his stupidity. For a few moments, he looked so pitifully unaware and clue-less---
Mainly due to all of that puffed up pride of his that blinded and stupefied him.
(His cohorts followed suit, sorry to say)
And, the coup d'etat is that he, the intelligent, elite atheist, has been duped, debunked and dis-missed all in one fell swoop----by his own doing.
Strong work.
Excellent movie.
A great advertisement for the book, "The Dawkins Delusion", if I ever saw one: Starring Dawkins himself ;~)
*** Mr. Dawkins, you say you've been 'had'...tell us, in other circumstances, would you have stood up to your convictions as well as you did in this movie?!
Or would you, once again open that big uncontrolled, biased, two-sided mouth of yours again and remove all doubt of your hypocrisy???(or more aptly, from your absolutely brilliant film screen debut: psychosis!)
Either way, you lose. And, so do all of your proponents, not mentioning any names.
No matter how one slices it--it's like my 9 yr old son calls it: "athe-idiotic stuff".
Mumbo jumbo irrationality and unfounded opinions and then once the stark reality of it all (especially of the Hatred toward God) is exposed, they all run and hide into their politically correct rants/caves.
Crystals? yes. Aliens? Yes. Any other preposterous idea, thought? Yes.
God? Oh, no, God forbid. (translated, loosely: "non servium").
Y'all get the point.
Not looking for replies. no amount of atheistic back-pedalling or spinning could ever make up for the bunk coming out of so many unrational, biased and blinded scientists, hiding behind the guise of atheism.
(translated into avoiding hot topics, rather than take them on head-on, and staying politically correct in order to keep their jobs and make lots of $$).
No respect for them, I tell ya.
Nope.
None.
Devon at 1:30PM on Apr 30th 2008
779. Hi Dinesh,
As someone very sympathetic to your viewpoints, I feel duped and betrayed by your duplicity. I feel that you are furthering the intentional distortion of Dawkins point of view in order to gain favor from those of us who question nothing, and accept everything. You're validating the claim often made by the godless that we're mindless.
I mean, until I did some research, I believed that Dawkins actually was exposed and that it indeed took as much faith to believe in aliens as it does God, when it seems that is not the case at all.
Dawkins was asked to describe a scenario in which ID would prove legitimate. The only thing Ben Stein has exposed in this film is that Dawkins is so firm in his atheism that to him, it's more likely aliens seeded life, than our God.
This is very upsetting to me, as a Christian. All you're doing is delegitimizing our faith by purposefully distorting his words. As Christians, this goes against the fabric of what we believe. He was asked to create the scenario. This is very different than coming up with one on his own.
This is shameful and pathetic and I'm embarrassed to say that I have supported you Dinesh. If our side is the one telling the truth, then why do we have to lie?
MATT 7:16 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?"
Teh 909 at 3:02PM on May 12th 2008
780. Well stated, Teh, you're not the only Christian who feels duped and betrayed by Dinesh D'Souza's duplicity. But Dinesh, like his ex girlfriend Ann Coulter, continues to stoop two lower levels, even defending Ben Stein's lying propaganda film, "Expelled", which now history has shown is more appropriately titled "Flunked and Failed".
From Scientific America:
Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution.
Expelled includes many clips of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, William Provine and PZ Myers who are also well known as atheists. They talk about how their knowledge of science confirms their convictions and how in some cases science led them to atheism. And indeed, surveys do indicate that atheism is more common among scientists than in the general population.
Nevertheless, the film is wrong to imply that understanding of evolution inevitably or necessarily leads to a rejection of religious belief. Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a leading neuroscientist who used to be a Dominican priest, continues to be a devout Catholic, as does the evolutionary biologist Ken Miller of Brown University. Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. Moreover, billions of other people around the world simultaneously accept evolution and keep faith with their religion. The late Pope John Paul II said that evolution was compatible with Roman Catholicism as an explanation for mankind's physical origins.
During Scientific American's post-screening conversation with Expelled associate producer Mark Mathis, we asked him why Ken Miller was not included in the film. Mathis explained that his presence would have "confused" viewers. But the reality is that showing Miller would have invalidated the film's major premise that evolutionary biologists all reject God.
Inside and outside the scientific community, people will no doubt continue to debate rationalism and religion and disagree about who has the better part of that argument. Evidence from evolution will probably remain at most a small part of that conflict, however."
LindaL at 8:10PM on May 15th 2008