Quote: Aaron, Ok, this seems more like apples and oranges.
I am a liberal Democrat, however I'm not sure I subscribe to PC liberalism, or see it connected to atheism.
I certainly believe in God, and don't believe the universe is without authorship.
Eugenics, or by another name, "playing God", has absolutely nothing to do with Darwinism, which is about "natural selection", and the adaptability and survival of the species. Ben Stein is a natural born "fool", and has no credibility. End Quote
See we can agree.

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

No man or scientist knows definatively what the "spark of life" actually was that took life on earth from very simple single celled organisms to very complex multi cellular organisms in a blink of the galactic eye....not Ben Stein...not any religion...no one. Thats one of my problems with amost all organized religion and certainly a hug criticism of any scientist who claims to "know" the origin of life on Earth.

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Have you read The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins?

He doesn't claim to have the definitive answer, but some of the speculations in that book are fascinating.

(He also refreshingly refrains from discussing religion except a few jabs here and there.)

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

glad to hear it.

You know, most scientists don't think that life became complex in the blink of an eye. Actually, I believe the consensus is that it took billions of years for multi-celled life to form at all, and then only because the single-celled organisms had tipped the atmosphere's balance towards oxygen content.

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When's the last time you had happy days?
Blazin' up your herb to escape the maze.

~Dove, De La Soul, Itsoweezee

Thirty-three sayin nothin, second thirty-three just frontin', third thirty-three straight bluffin, Ice Tea sayin do somethin! Tupac sayin do somethin! NWA says do somethin! Zulu Nation sayin' c'mon, do somethin! Visionaries sayin do somethin!

Ooh, Zeph, watch it. In another forum on this same basic topic, I used the term "scientific consensus", and all of a sudden I was claiming reality was subject to popular vote!

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"I don't think we should be governing ourselves. What need is a king, and every now and then if the king’s not doing a good job, we kill him." - George Carlin

Yes, they do tend to do that, don't they?

__________________
When's the last time you had happy days?
Blazin' up your herb to escape the maze.

~Dove, De La Soul, Itsoweezee

Thirty-three sayin nothin, second thirty-three just frontin', third thirty-three straight bluffin, Ice Tea sayin do somethin! Tupac sayin do somethin! NWA says do somethin! Zulu Nation sayin' c'mon, do somethin! Visionaries sayin do somethin!

Holy **** this guy is a ****ing moron.

Actually I have hopes for the movie because I think that religious people will take the ball and run with it. If they do then they will get a rude awakening on what ID is really all about. They don't want to align themselves with it but me saying that is sure not going to make any difference. And now I note that the religious amongst you on this forum are afraid to take it on. You included it seems by the way you are backing away from it now.

Too bad, it promised some good fun at religion's expense.

Ben Stein is taking Michael Moore's playbook and attacking evolution with it. This isn't an honest, reasonably considered approach to the question, he has an agenda, and he's willing to lie to people in order to make them look as awful as possible.

The guy is a goddamn idiot, and a lying sack of **** to boot.

Evolution is not a political position. It is a scientific position. Painting it as a political position admits outright that you cannot attack it from a scientific perspective.

Intelligent Design isn't acceptable in academic circles because it's fundamentally ****ing stupid. Moreover, anyone stupid enough to try to champion it is probably too stupid to teach at a professional institution. My understanding is that most of the people who support intelligent design in academia were fired because they were incompetent. No surprise there.

What debate?

Ben Stein, like most people, is too stupid to differentiate between abiogenesis and evolution. Darwin said nothing about the origin of the universe or the origin of life. It's a different concept entirely.

I think he's too easy on god. Have you READ the Old Testament? It's a slaughterfest. By all means, though, hold that up as a standard to aspire to.

Not only are all of these more probable than a deity supposition, one of them has been verified by experiment dozens of times, dating back to the 50s. But I'm sure that won't stop this ignorant douchebag from presuming it's absurd.

Now this is utterly inane and inflammatory, with ZERO basis in anything resembling reality. To the best of my knowledge, Hitler never mentioned Darwin anywhere in Mein Kampf. He was, on the other hand, a devout Roman Catholic. More to the point, neither Darwin nor any modern theory of evolution has anything whatsoever to do with how human societies should be conducted, and eugenics is UNNATURAL selection, the precise OPPOSITE of Darwin's theory. These two things are fundamentally unrelated. Nice smear, though, Stein, you ****ing blowhard.

Prophets? I've never heard of an evolution prophet. And if they were so open and honest with PZ Myers, why did they kick him out of the pre-screening of the film when they found out he was going to show up?

What this notion boils down to is that we shouldn't ever tell people that their religion isn't more important than academics. Which is bull****. You want to spout religious crap, do it in church. If you want to present a scientific argument, find some evidence. Religion is and should be exactly as welcome in biology classrooms as astrology is in astronomy classrooms.