Chris Heard: Why Ken Miller isn’t in Expelled

IOW, thou shalt not confuse people with the facts! :p

Henry

I don’t think you can intellectually, honestly, honestly intellectually stand on a line that I don’t think exists—

AaronSTL:

I don’t think you can intellectually, honestly, honestly intellectually stand on a line that I don’t think exists—

Translation: Nothing exists if Mathis personally doesn't believe in it. What a tard.

Chris Heard: What brazen arrogance of Mathis to declare that Ken Miller is not a “real Catholic”! What about Francis Collins? Is he not a “real evangelical”? What about John Polkinghorne? Is he not a “real Anglican” (ordination’s not good enough)? To shift gears, what about the 11,196 (as of April 9, 2008) signatories to the Clergy Letter Project? Are active clergy not “real Christians”? Or maybe Mathis would say that Lutherans, Nazarenes, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mennonites, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Moravians, and the other “flavors” of Christians represented by those 11,196 signatures aren’t “real Christians” either? Getting back to Ken Miller, at least two popes—Pius XII and John Paul II—specifically affirmed the compatibility of evolutionary biology and Catholic Christian faith (as long as special provisions were made for the direct divine production of human souls). Agreeing with two popes is hardly an aberrant in Catholicism.

I'm so happy to see this. In all the scientific reasons why ID is bunk, the fact that it's plain bad theology is just overlooked and I feel that's really the best ammunition we have. Think about it, is the core audience a bunch of people who read books on virology for fun? Or folks who are genuinely concerned about what their faith means to them? People just need to realise, it's OK to accept evolution as fact. It doesn't make you a bad Christian or a bad Jew or a bad Hindu or a bad Muslim. What does is when you tell God what he can and cannot do.

It's like a man who sticks his hand in a snakepit and says "God will not let me be injured!" and then his hand gets bit 42 times. He gets rushed to the hospital and as they're sucking out the venom he says "I'll never believe in God again!" When you give God a set of directions and expect him to follow them to the tee, you will have serious questions of faith very quickly.

Shorter Mark Mathis: Ken Miller's flamboyant Catholicism would've provoked a Scanners-esque reaction among members of our audience. We stonewalled him for their safety.

I’m so happy to see this. In all the scientific reasons why ID is bunk, the fact that it’s plain bad theology is just overlooked and I feel that’s really the best ammunition we have.

— Reginald

Think about it, is the core audience a bunch of people who read books on virology for fun?

That's funny. As for Ken not being a typical Roman Catholic, I have a book arguing for evolution . It is;

Evolution and Theology

Rev Ernest Messenger (Ph.D. Louvain)

Published by Burns and Oates in 1932 complete with Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat.

With little effort one could find loads more.I am sure Peter hess's new book (Greenwood Press) would provide some.

In fact the number of Real Catholics, real Evangelicals and Real Anglicans like Miller are innumerable and even more when you go back a century or two.

I note that no mention is ever made of real Evangelicals like the geologist Sedgwick in the 1830s or the many who accepted evolution after 1860 .

Another problem is that too many evangelicals today don't want to face the controversy and don't stand up to these guys.

Michael

Mathis claims that he, like I, was raised a Catholic.

Assuming he made it as far as Confirmation (age 12 or so) he would have been taught that the account of creation in Genesis is to be understood as largely metaphoric.

If he attended a Catholic High School, he would have heard a more detailed account of how the Catholic church views the relationship of positive (i.e. humanly generated, or non-revealed) knowledge such as scientific discoveries, and revealed knowledge, including that in the scriptures.

That relationship precludes crude biblical literalism because of the patent discrepancy between, on the one hand, positive (i.e. scientific) understanding of facts concerning the origin and development of the universe, the Earth, the human species, etc, and, on the other hand, a literal reading of the Genesis account of creation. To adopt that approach would, in the eyes of the church, be an abuse of reason.

Say what you want about the Catholic church (and believe me, I could say lots), they aren't stupid. They got (ahem) burnt badly by the Reformation, and they're not going to let another Galileogate happen. Contrary to popular belief, Catholics are expressly told to use their noggins and keep their eyes open.

Mathis suggest in this discussion that "Some Catholics are going to say, believe in a, uh, literal version of what is accounted for in the Bible—"

Is he speaking from experience? If so, he should, given his background, also know that such a position is essentially un-doctrinal. If not, he should know that it is extremely unlikely and wholly unrepresentative.

The whole sorry crew of them are mendacious hypocrites, and stupid to boot.

Mathis: "Some Catholics are going to say, believe in a, uh, literal version of what is accounted for in the Bible—"

Mathis says that he, like I, was raised a Catholic.

I he made it as far as Confirmation (age 12 or so), he would have learned that the Genesis account of creation should be understood by Catholics as largely metaphoric.

If he went to a Catholic High School (or if not, if his parents followed Catholic teaching as to his religious education outside school) he would have learned about Catholic teaching on the relationship of revealed (e.g. biblical) knowledge to positive (e.g. scientific or rationally deduced) knowledge. That relationship precludes crude biblical literalism as, among other things, an abuse of reason.

If he was not introduced to Catholic teaching on these matters, he should at least be aware of the notorious divergence between those teachings (as well as Catholics' acceptance of them) and flat-footed fundie literalism.

Say what you want about the Catholic church (and believe me, I could say lots), they aren't stupid. They got badly (ahem) burnt by the Reformation, and they don't want to be tripped up by another Galileogate. Contrary to widespread preconceptions, Catholics are (nowadays, anyway) encouraged to use their noggins and to keep their eyes open.

Is Mathis speaking here from personal experience? If so, he should know that the view he describes is undoctrinal. If not, he should know that it would be highly unlikely and entirely unrepresentative.

The whole sorry crew of them are mendacious hypocrites, and stupid to boot.

Oops! A not-quite double post. Apologies.

(Except for the bit about stupid mendacious hypocrites.)

Michael Roberts in Comment #150265 made an interesting point about the book by the Roman Catholic Rev. arguing for evolution in 1932, but seems to me to confuse things a bit when he notes "that no mention is ever made of real Evangelicals like the geologist Sedgwick in the 1830s". Sedgwick remained staunchly anti-evolution and wrote harshly about "On the Origin of Species'' by his former pupil Charles Darwin, though in the late 1820s he'd taught Darwin of the extreme age of the earth and indeed had named the Cambrian period after an ancient name for Wales.

Some other evangelicals who accept evolution: Keith B. Miller and Denis Lamoureux (see the book Darwinism Defeated? ).

An organization called the American Scientific Affiliation brings together Evangelical scientists with a wide range of views on origins (including some who accept evolution) to debate these issues.

Obviously, none of this is mentioned in Expelled.

Also, Chris Heard apparently does not know that Howard Van Till has lost his faith. See FROM CALVINISM TO FREETHOUGHT: The Road Less Traveled .

The unmitigated arrogance of these Liars For Jesus™ is a disgrace to all religion.

Actually it's a boon for religion because they lie about things like stigmata and witnessing miracles and turning water into wine and so forth. Lying about receiving the ten commandments or walking on water, or waking up from a zombie, or even flying up into the sky like a big birdie... things like that really help out religion a lot!

Mathis said: But I would tell you from a, my personal standpoint as somebody who’s worked on this project, that Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily. I don’t agree with Ken Miller.

Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily,

Howard Van Till has lost his faith

Dave

You need to remember that Sedgwick was 75 when Darwin wrote and his letter was signed "from the son of monkey". One cannot expect him to be pro-evolution.

However he was like a rotweiler arguing for the vast age of the earth and ruffled one or two feathers. His evangelicalism would be seen as too stoppy for some evangelicals today!His whole treatment of Genesis and geology is fascinating and sounds modern. I have just written it up for a Geol Soc of London book

Finally here is Adam Sedgwick, after he supposedly gave up ‘the detailed hypotheses of catastrophist flood geology’ in 1831;
To the supreme Intelligence, indeed, all the complex and mutable combinations we behold, may be the necessary results of some simple law, regulating every material change, and involving within itself the very complications, which we, in our ignorance, regard as interruptions in the continuity of Nature’s work.

1844 draftby Darwin;
I must premise that, according to the view ordinarily received, the myriads of organisms, which have during past and present times peopled this world, have been created by so many distinct acts of creation. … That all the organisms of this world have been produced on a scheme is certain from their general affinities; and if this scheme can be shown to be the same with that which would result from allied organic beings descending from common stocks, it becomes highly improbable that they have been separately created by individual acts of the will of a Creator. For as well might it be said that, although the planets move in courses conformably to the law of gravity, yet we ought to attribute the course of each planet to the individual act of the will of the Creator.

I don't have any explicit public statements, but Dr. Wayne Becker (author World of the Cell) never shied away from talking about evolution in class when I had him and I happen to know from a fellow student (who attended the same church) at the time he was involved in his church.

Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily.

We also need theologians who can rebut the argument of the Christian biology teacher that there is no conflict between evolution or naturalism and Christianity.

Well, we can be grateful to Mark Mathis for answering at least one age-old question. Is the Pope Catholic?

Yes, but apparently not quite Catholic enough!

I guess Prof. George Coyne, a Catholic priest and former head of the Vatican Observatory, also isn't Catholic enough.

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18504

And it seems Catholic Universities like Notre Dame and Georgetown are not Catholic enough

http://www1.georgetown.edu/departments/biology/research/eeb/

Mathis is engaging in ridiculous circular reasoning. He claims that his dichotomy is based on the beliefs of scientists (he says that in the interview regarding PZM, Dawkins), yet he rejects the beliefs of other scientists for not supporting his view.

These guys are totally unbelievable. The IDC crowd disliked "Inherit the Wind" for not being a verbatim account of the Scopes Trial. In my opinion, the best job yet of caricaturing the ID propaganda, dishonesty, and poor reasoning has been done by their own little crowd.

Maybe they didn't want Collins and Miller (and all the signatories to the Clergy Project) in the film because the title "Inconvenient Truth" had already been taken.

Hmmm?

On Higgaion, Chris Heard, associate professor of Religion at Pepperdine University exposes how vacuous ‘Expelled’ really is.

While you're at it, check out Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America by Robert S. McElvaine. He teaches at Milsaps College in Jackson, MS, is an evangelical Christian, and is fed up with the Christian Right. McElvaine has a chapter on the war against evolution, and he's done his homework; he understands evolution through natural selection, and he shows that IDC is both lousy science and lousy theology. He's writing to his base, of course, not to us infidels, and it shows in his style. The book is downright hilarious in places, but it would probably work better as a talk to an audience familiar with a certain kind of preacher. The puns and other wordplay lie so thick on the page you could lose your boots in them. It's a good book, and McElvaine is definitely one of those Christians who would confuse Brother Mathis.

ChicagoMolly,

Thanks, I was not aware of that book!

Another moderate Christian group that is fed up with the Christian Right is the Texas Freedom Network. They teamed up with Texas Citizens for Science and helped defeat two creationist candidates for the Texas State Board of Education in the primary elections.

http://www.tfn.org/

That Van Till pdf was interesting. I like his 'ODoR' concept, mostly because it says 'odor'. Especially this line: "I find it helpful to realize that I, like every other human being, have an ODoR that is open to critical and candid examination."

He never actually says that he's denounced Calvinism or determinism, etc, and those are *necessarily* opposed to freethought, as even if we assume it to be wrong, one can come rationally to the wrong conclusions in a freethought-type methodology. I mention freethought because he seems to like it quite a bit, and at the end he gives me the impression that he's reforming his general epistemology, making it rather hard to tell if or how someone should label him.

While you’re at it, check out Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America by Robert S. McElvaine. He teaches at Milsaps College in Jackson, MS, is an evangelical Christian, and is fed up with the Christian Right. McElvaine has a chapter on the war against evolution,...

raven: And what is it with this War on Science anyway? Most people like living in the 21st century instead of the 11th century. Makes about as much sense as The War on Indoor Plumbing or The War on Cheap Internet Capable Computers.

Some of them honestly don’t care, what with the next, oh-so-much better next world just waiting around that final, apocalyptic corner, and all.

Hi all,

If the producers of "Expelled" had thought of interviewing the likes of Ken Miller, Keith Miller (no relation to Ken, but an invertebrate paleontologist who is an Evangelical Protestant Christian), Francis Collins, or Mike Rosenzweig (a prominent ecologist who is a devout Conservative Jew), they probably realized immediately that these interviews wouldn't quite measure to their rather Manichean "Good Christian vs. Evil Darwinist" worldview that is the underlying theme of "Expelled". It's a pity, however, because if they were really honest about their intentions and tried to make a decent documentary film, then maybe the sight of Ken Miller, Francis Collins or Mike Rosenzweig explaining how and why they see no contradication at all between their acceptance of contemporary evolutionary theory and their devout religious faith might sow ample confusion amongst IDiots wavering in their support of the Disco Tute and its inane band of mendacious intellectual pornographers. I guess we'll never know.

Regards,

John

PZ Myers has said some pretty vicious stuff about Miller on his site.

Guys like him and Dawkins want us to think that science=atheism and they despise men like Miller and Collins who know that is a lie.