http://www.expelledthemovie.com/home.php
This looks interesting....movie taking a stand against orthodoxy / the debate is over type of Big Science...in this case...Darwinism. I think evolution is a useful theory...but I do see evidence of a Creator beyond the mechanisms of evolution.
I noticed this post was made before the movie debuted. Having seen the movie, it supports the pro-intelligent design theory, which is not necessarily creationism exclaiming a world created in 6 24 hour days, but a theory that life was not created by chance.
The greatest message from the movie is that the freedom of free speech, being denied those that believe in an intelligent design, threatens our freedom of free discussion of ideas on college campuses and in American society.
Another message strongly conveyed throughout Stein's movie is atheism and Darwinism can be as oppressive as any fundamentalist religion.
Zealots are zealots no matter their creed.
Sounds like a "thumb up" review....good.
I haven't seen the film, but I have seen Ben promote it. My concern is that it confuses very separate issues. While I don't believe in a magical evolution of life from a random act of chemical interaction, I understand that evolution is a scientific theory and therefore is properly taught in science classes. Per Wikipedia, in science the term theory "...does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory."
Ben Stein's movie appears to want to exchange science for theology in school; I think we can all agree that this is inappropriate. We wouldn't want our doctors learning the "theory" of faith healing, we want them to study science and learn medical treatment based on best existing knowledge how to treat our illnesses. Additionally, blaming Naziism and every other "bad thing" on evolution is like condemning all religious people because a minority have distorted religion to be destructive and oppressive. I often have to defend religion from friends who see instances like the latest FLDS raid and throw up their arms "well that's religion for you." On further discussion, inevitably these friends know nothing about the breadth of religious thought and practice. They never throw up their hands and make the same exasperated expression when a church feeds the homeless or does some other act of charity.
Teaching of evolution is theology--atheistic theology, which the movie makes abundantly clear. The evolutionist idea of accidental big bang and connecting of chromosomes to create DNA is a faith that a one in billion chance "it just happen." ID people believe that the initial creation was by an intelligent force. Traditional evolutionists by faith believe in an accident; IDist by faith believe in an intelligent force whether you believe that to be god or not is up to you.
The movie does not blame Nazism on evolution. Richard Dawkins, an atheistic evolutionist, wrote the God Delusion with the thesis that there is no God because of the atrocities done in the name of God. Expelled points out that Darwinism taken to its extreme does (did in Nazi Germany) also lead to atrocities against humanity.
On Dawkins defense, he repudiates Social Darwinism as we as theists must condemn torture and murder in the name of God .
"Teaching of evolution is theology--atheistic theology, which the movie makes abundantly clear."
Evolution does not attempt to deny or explain the existence of a Supreme Being. If a particular teacher is doing so, he or she is not teaching proper science.
"The evolutionist idea of accidental big bang and connecting of chromosomes to create DNA is a faith that a one in billion chance "it just happen.""
While some people may believe otherwise, the big bang theory (again theory in a scientific sense) is based on certain assumptions, has limits in its ability to explain some things, and is at its heart an attempt to explain the mechanism by which the universe began. Again, it is neutral as to whether or not a Supreme Being initiated it, was created by it, doesn't exist, oversaw it, etc. Those are questions that cannot be framed or answered in a scientific manner, they are questions for religion and philosophy.
Richard Dawkins is not neutral in his belief whether or not a Supreme Being "initiated it, was created by it, doesn't exist, oversaw it, ". He and others scientist in the same camp are very dogmatic that no supreme being had anything to do with it.
True, but Dawkins is a man and not a theory
Plus, he's a rabid supporter of a particular theology, namely atheism, which again I think is outside the proper scope of scientific theory.