Expelled!: A spoiler

"Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany."

Nazi Germany has been a dead issue for over sixty years. So what's their problem?

The "Expelled" people are going about this the wrong way, then. You can't kill an idea, so why go after evolution?

No, clearly the answer is that we must get rid of Germany.

No more Germany = no more potential for a future Nazi Germany ever again. Problem solved!

PS, thanks for spoiling the fact that Ben Stein is Jewish! You ruined the whole surprise of the movie for me. :(

They forgot one.

Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany. Which then leads to many years later to where some idiots will string together in some stupid documentary that Darwin was Nazi.

On another note from previous diary, Dawkins mentions that helping the weak is unDarwin like , but is not the cooperative, social aspect of man that allowed to our rapid rise in evolutionary terms?

minimalist: The "Expelled" people are going about this the wrong way, then. You can't kill an idea, so why go after evolution? No, clearly the answer is that we must get rid of Germany. No more Germany = no more potential for a future Nazi Germany ever again. Problem solved!

John.williams aka hoj aka gota aka preen aka Jacob2 aka Jacob has continued to violate PT policy.

john.williams: A leading international anti-religion crusader and supporter of Darwinian theory, Dr. Richard Dawkins, has said that the pseudo-science of eugenics that drove the Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad.” (lifesite news)

Did Ben Stein's parents spend time in concentration camps?

Dawkins sure looks like a Nazi. Now his familiy is very elite and aristocratic. And he was born in a country where they treat blacks very badly. A white man's burden type of place. And Kenya where he was born was a German protectorate.

"It is an article of passionate faith among "politically correct" biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intelligence has nothing to do with genes; and that genes are probably nasty fascist things anyway." R. Dawkins Hmmm....

Chemistry leads to synthesis leads to hydrogen cyanide leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

ZOMG CHEMISTRY IS INHERENTLY EVIL.

PvM: John.williams aka hoj aka gota aka preen aka Jacob2 aka Jacob has continued to violate PT policy.

That would make it so much easier to teach Intelligent Design Creationism in schools.

I'm sorry if I'm dense, but is this a joke ‘white characters on a white background’? or does the paragraph actually exist albeit invisibly on the website?

"It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz, this is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died at Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people." - Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, (passage spoken at Auschwitz)

The radicals start with equivocation and close by asking for equality, which they see as a method to eventually dominate their opponents. Intelligent-design advocates, like their creationist predecessors, have made their central objective the inclusion of “equal time” to “teach the controversy” in public schools, which they know is the best route toward eventually supplanting Darwinian evolution. Palestinian apologists campaign principally for the “right of return,” which they and their counterparts in Israel know is merely a way for the larger Palestinian population to eclipse the Jewish population and thus establish one de facto Palestinian state.

I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?

No, the destruction of Germany won’t solve anything.

Eugenics predates Darwin by thousands of years.

So now we know John. You are worried that your faith is the only thing that stops you from becoming a genocidal maniac.

Quidam: I'm sorry if I'm dense, but is this a joke ‘white characters on a white background’? or does the paragraph actually exist albeit invisibly on the website?

I suppose jakie will complain that his "substantive" arguments against "Darwinism" are being flushed yet again because we have no answers for them.

He really is a special little boy, isn't he. PvM is right to flush the little turd at every opportunity.

As far as I can see, there is only One Stein of great importance coming from Germany: Einstein.

Our troll John Williams is not only scientifically ignorant, but historically ignorant as well.

Centuries of vitriolic Christian anti-Semitism are never mentioned by him.

Jews were not exterminated for eugenic reasons, they were exterminated in an attempt to completely erase all traces of the Jewish people and their culture. The Nazis cynically used the trappings and symbols of Christianity and some of the older Nordic pagan
religions.

The Nazis effectively fed and fanned the flames of hatred that were already burning in Christian Europe. Ever heard of the Russian Pogroms, John? How about the horrors of the Inquisition promulgated by the Church? Christians burning witches? Never heard of that either? How about the murderous Christian fanatics that slaughtered countless innocents just because of their differences in dogma during the Thirty-Years War?
How about the Crusades, John? Explain to us how Darwin caused them.

I know they are readable, I hadn't seen the quote on the site and I'd rather not have to wade through the site to find it. I'm not mistrustful, but I do like to see the evidence.

For anyone else in the same situation - here is the link:

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/chronicle.php?article=11

We might also say this:

Ernest Rutherford->Discovery of nuclear physics->Manhattan Project->Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

We must therefore ban all teachings of Rutherford from the schools immediately!!!!

John.William/Jacob or whatever your name is - would you like to comment please?

Many scenes are centered around the Berlin Wall, and Ben Stein being Jewish actually visits many death camps and death showers. In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

One more thing, John, every German Wehrmacht (Army) uniform had a belt buckle
that was inscribed: "Gott mit Uns". Look it up.

john.williams: ----he could play a nazi in any WW2 movie. he is perfect

Re. Spoiler:

Its at the very bottom of the page. I find the section readily visible if too small to be easily readable (being color-blind my vision is keyed to intensity levels rather than colors)

More lies from Mathis and company:

EXPELLED Controversy Top Issue in Blogosphere

“It is amazing to see the reaction of PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and their cohorts when one of them is simply expelled from a movie. Yet these men applaud when professors throughout the nation are fired from their jobs and permanently excluded from their profession for mentioning Intelligent Design,” said producer Mark Mathis

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080325006175&newsLang=en

waldteufel: One more thing, John, every German Wehrmacht (Army) uniform had a belt buckle that was inscribed: "Gott mit Uns". Look it up.

Wow. Looking up "Gott mit Uns" and found this: http://nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
Some interesting pictures of Nazi Christians.

http://blog.darwincentral.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/buckled.jpg

ofro: As far as I can see, there is only One Stein of great importance coming from Germany: Einstein.

This is the modern christian crusade against those "uppity Athiests". Lie in the name of jesus, associate those you lie about with the devil, (or Hitler), and get the bon-fires going. Christians, even those in the past with "Got Mit Uns" belt buckles, have always used this method to either intimidate or kill non-believers.
It's amazing christians now want to link Hitler to Athiesm, when he was clearly christian by his own words and speaches.

At first i wasn't sure if this was a joke. I thought maybe someone had phished the site to create one that looked identical. But nope, i started from the opening page and navigated through the news section. its definitely there.

I am utterly ashamed that people who claim to believe in a God with the same name as mine would make a movie that portrays these things.

Well, beer steins are useful . . . . .

Misha: At first i wasn't sure if this was a joke. I thought maybe someone had phished the site to create one that looked identical. But nope, i started from the opening page and navigated through the news section. its definitely there. I am utterly ashamed that people who claim to believe in a God with the same name as mine would make a movie that portrays these things.

If more christians spoke out against such evil, then christianity might actually be worthy of some respect.

Comment #148365 on March 25, 2008 2:17 PM | Quote

Here Here! Well said!

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080325006175&newsLang=en

"EXPELLED was screened for a select Minneapolis grass roots audience on Thursday night. Dr. Myers and noted atheist Dr. Richard Dawkins were not sent invitations to the screening from the producers. Nevertheless, they acquired access to a proprietary online RSVP site, along with a group of other atheists."

Thanks for the link, Paul. Looks like the film producer's Ministry of Propaganda is in full swing.

Mr Darkman:

So now we know John. You are worried that your faith is the only thing that stops you from becoming a genocidal maniac.

Very good point. He reveals himself to be naturally immoral, by his admission that without his belief in god he would be a nazi. Perhaps one difference between atheists and the religious is that atheists don't need to be told that nazism is evil.

I said he looks like a Nazi and could play one in a movie. So do a lot of other people.

John Williams = Total Idiot

re: JW's assertion that Dawkins used an alias to get in

WTF???!! He didn't NEED to use an alias! When I signed up to see Expectorant I gave them my name and address, and they allowed me to bring 3 un-named friends. They NEVER asked for my guests names. The exact same procedure was in place in MN at the time.

It is certainly not Dawkins' fault that Mathis and the marketing company were as dumb as you.

While Ben Stein, Mark Mathis, Kevin Miller, Premise Media, and the self-important right wing blat on and on about evolution and Hitler, we are facing a crisis in the health care industry in this country!

HMOs are the very essence of the bureaucratic, “Darwinist” nightmare that Stein tries to evoke in Expelled, but will you hear that from him? He’s got his, after all.

Is it eugenics for children to have health care, or not, according to the class status of their parents? I think it is.

Is it eugenics for HMOs to deny needed care to patients in order to make a profit? I think it is.

Moreover, let’s move into the larger scam called insurance. Is it eugenics for insurance companies to deny payouts to Katrina victims based on hair-splitting definitions of “flood” or “hurricane”? I think it is.

But you won’t hear a peep of protest about that from Premise Media, unless the name “Terri Schiavo” is attached to it. Apparently, Ben Stein’s idea of looking out for the little guy is to whine about traders/Goldman Sachs taking over the world, when the little guy doesn’t have savings, let alone stocks.

Regarding the topic at hand, I haven't yet seen responses from any Jewish organizations. That's probably understandable since it hasn't been released to the general public yet.

Nevertheless, I contacted the Anti-Defamation League here: http://www.adl.org/contact_us.asp

And my regional office of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here: https://secure.ushmm.org/join/contact/

I linked them both to the Orlando Sentinel review by Roger Moore. It's the most mainstream publication to review the movie yet to the best of my knowledge, and it expressly criticizes the Darwin-caused-the-Holocaust meme.

I hope you'll do the same, and contact any other organizations that might have an interest in countering this kind of propoganda.

I haven’t yet seen responses from any Jewish organizations.

Folks:

Research project:

You well know he's a troll.

You well know that his only intent is to evoke replies that center on him rather than the topic at hand, and render PT useless as a discussion venue.

What are the reasons for you to willingly cooperate with his agenda?

raven:

I haven’t yet seen responses from any Jewish organizations.

Good idea. I looked up the Jewish perspective on the Holocaust. They must have an interest seeing as how these have been reoccurring for 2,000 years. 1. Most mainstream Xian and Jewish historians blame it on the German brand of Xianity. 2. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has a department called Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology with 11 evolutionary biologists. These aren't a secret cabal of Darwinists planning the next Holocaust. Not in Jerusalem. They are just normal scientists doing normal science. Doesn't look like the Jews themselves are going to buy the Expelled propaganda story.

Say in in pictures.

Pete Dunkelberg: Say (it) in pictures.

If people respond to trolls, I will remove their postings as well.

Ben Stein being Jewish actually visits many death camps and death showers.

this whole thing is disgusting -- i've heard the reductio ad hitlerium dozens of times before but seeing stein have the fucking nerve to FLY to poland and pontificate there -- and use his jewishness too -- the id people have sunk to a low that even i didn't think them capable of.

The thing is, the movie didn't even actually suggest this! Look, I know that the REAL message of the movie is "science will turn you into an evil atheist". That's the fear they're playing off of. They spend nearly as much time harping on about scientists who are atheists as they do on the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a good prop for them to pretend to be concerned about something else despite the fact that ID has frequently become intertwined with holocaust deniers.

But they never, EVER suggested that atheism is what lead to the holocaust. They suggested two separate things. That science leads to atheism, and that science leads to eugenics/holocaust/etc. It was never a three step process, they were treated as two different results of the same thing. They went so far as to specifically say that while they're not saying that "darwinism" made the Holocaust happen, it couldn't have happened without it. They specifically said that it was required for it to happen at all. One step, A-B.

It's a little odd that I caught the message of the movie better than the writers did. It's also a little curious that they seem to be completely ignorant of the rest of human history, or indeed the history of the specific event that they're focusing on.

And on another note.. it's a damned good thing for these cretins that atheism really isn't a religion. If it was they'd be cruising for a massive religious hate speech lawsuit.

I know that the REAL message of the movie is “science will turn you into an evil atheist”.

PvM: If people respond to trolls, I will remove their postings as well.

Trolls can sometimes be very useful to act as a springboard for easy-to-understand explanations on unfamiliar science topics.

I have learned a great deal from the science-savvy types that hang around here as they dispel fundy ignorance.

Yet I don't want to see repeat-offender trolls derailing threads.

Perhaps a "yellow card/red card" system could be started up combined with an option to devote a special thread to long term trolls with a special issue?

We could call the combined troll threads "the zoo" and regulars could rattle the cages and feed the inhabitants as they please.

Gosh, I'd never realized the Berlin Wall was built by the Nazis! ;)

Hitler had ~12 years, and look what havoc he wrought.

The Theory of Evolution has had ~150 years. Where's the evidence that in that hugely greater amount of time the scientists who support it have done or intend to do anything even remotely approaching what Hitler did?

Exactly. Nowhere.

Gosh, I’d never realized the Berlin Wall was built by the Nazis! ;)

Logically, evolution leads only about as far as deism.

There is no contradiction between evolution and a God who is smart enough to make a universe that makes itself. It's the height of arrogance to say that because science contradicts a particular religion's creation myth, it therefore leads to atheism*.

Does evolution debunk Christianity, Judaism, and Islam? Yes.
Does evolution contradict the general notion of a God? No.

That's one of the funniest things about ID: they try really hard to make it look like they have nothing to do with past cdesign proponentists, but then they go straight to attacking evolution, a stance that only makes sense if they are operating under the same basic Judeo-Christian-(Muslim) assumptions about God as the creationists.

* Yes, I know, I am an atheist, but not expressly because of evolution. Besides rejecting all particular religions for their particular false truth claims, and being suspicious of the whole idea of God or Gods given our obviously very strong tendency to make Gods in human form, the whole idea just seems unnecessary once one develops a certain level of understanding of natural processes, of which evolution is but one small part. Eventually, God's role becomes so small and theoretical that he might as well just get shaved off by Occam's razor.

Maybe we need to define clearly what makes a troll, as opposed to a curious seeker of knowledge that happens to not [believe] in evolution.

Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

Says it all, really.


Evolution Not Responsible for Hitler

PvM: Edited to make link work

Re Ofro:

There are three famous people named Stein
There's Gert, and there,s Ep- , and there's Ein-
Gert's poetry's bunk
Ep's sculpture is junk
And nobody understands Ein-

(old limerick)

Does evolution debunk Christianity, Judaism, and Islam? Yes. Does evolution contradict the general notion of a God? No.

— Jason Failes

That’s one of the funniest things about ID: they try really hard to make it look like they have nothing to do with past cdesign proponentists, but then they go straight to attacking evolution, a stance that only makes sense if they are operating under the same basic Judeo-Christian-(Muslim) assumptions about God as the creationists.

— Jason Failes