Mayhaps you have heard of this film, perhaps you haven't. Ben Stein, world renowned for being a stereotypical stuffed shit, I mean shirt, has decided that he's a bad-ass rebel for arguing against Science being taught in Science classes.
If you watched that trailer, you might have noticed that they seem to claim that anyone who espouses a scientific view (i.e., one based on observation and experiments) can not possibly be religious. Darwin wasn't an Atheist, and even if he were, so what? His science doesn't argue that there can't be a God; simply that there isn't any evidence. What this trailer is all about, and the longer ones demonstrate even more, is that it isn't science that's uncomfortable with religion; it is that old time religion is pretty damn uncomfortable with science. The God of the Gaps, as Koestler put it.
There are two quotes in the just 2 minutes of trailer that blows apart the supposed dialectic the film clearly is trying to suggest.
Ben Stein says, "Scientists are not even allowed to think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator."
That is simply not true. Scientists since Roman times and up at this present moment are allowed to have whatever thoughts they want to have about God. To suggest otherwise is stupid. In fact, the vast majority of scientists throughout history have not been atheists, and that includes fucking Darwin. Truth be told, religion got in the way of some of our finest minds. Johannes Kepler is a fine example. He threw away his scientific findings because he couldn't accept that planets would move in an ellilptical fashion--God would produce spheres. He knew that in his heart, even when his numbers proved him wrong. Copernicus wasn't willing to publish his findings because he knew that Christians would berate him for his heliocentric universe. Galileo was fucking arrested for stating positively that the Bible wasn't good on Cosmology. Einstein dismissed Quantum Physics with a quote about how God didn't roll dice. Scientists are free to believe whatever they want to believe. But when it comes to science, it is about PROOF.
So when the Kraut comes on and says, "We can not accept Intelligent Design as scientific theory," he isn't saying that he doesn't believe in God; he's saying that he can't prove God's existence. Simple statement. And yet, it is taken to be some big evil Big Science Over Religion statement.
Ben Stein is a fucking waste of his father's cum.
For a more dispassionate takedown of this movie, I point you to here.
For evidence that this movie isn't based on science, I would suggest reading this post, titled "How To Share Your Faith Using Expelled". And I give you this quote, which shows how wildy dishonest the makers and defenders of this movie are willing to be:
Stein actually captured footage of ‘famous’ atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, acknowledging that he is more inclined to believe that life originated on earth as a result of a visit from aliens, than to entertain the scientific possibility that an Intelligent Designer could exist. No surprise here, but Dawkins is reportedly a bit upset about how he comes across in the movie…
First of all, Stein didn't capture shit. Dawkins has been saying this for years. And it isn't like he argues for super-intelligent aliens coming to Earth. What he argues is that it could have been a comet strike carrying bits of organic molecules that helped spur life on this planet. I've seen Dawkins on video after watching the movie. He didn't seem upset to me. Bemused would be a better word.
But these ignorant, scared of science assholes don't have an agenda. And hey, suggesting that Darwin is to blame for Hitler? Pretty classy, Ben Stein.
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