Expelled: A desperation move, or a real danger?
Offline Even though I was compelled to laugh, this scared me. http://www.expelledthemovie.com/playground.php
I can't help but make a few correlations between current events and the release of this movie. It appears to me that we are on the verge of a major philosophical battle, one that might be worse than any the US has ever seen. I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but this could be dangerous (The movement I mean, not just the movie). To the best of my imagination this last desperate push appears only to have two possibilities, either a mass enlightenment and the near ruin of religion, or a mass dumbing down and persecution of us atheists and scientists. On top of that their are powerful people who have a vested interest in pushing these ideas. Worst of all,this could truly damage science here in the US, and take us off the economic map totally. The only thing we can do is educate ourselves and prepare for a fight it seems.
Thats cute.
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For fuck's sake. It was hard enough to sit through 'jesus camp' without crying.
Now, I'll have to watch this?!
I think we're already going through a faceoff between science and religion.
I wonder if they'll be disappointed that few protesters show up to see the movie and 50% of them will be jesus freaks. Meanwhile, atheists will go in to see the flick and debunk not only the claims concerning 'dogmatic Darwinism', but also the false claims of persecution by the creationists.
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daretoknow, thank you for posting this. This is just the thing I was talking about on another thread earlier. Fundies are using everything and everyone to push their agenda and we should too.
I couldn't agree more with your assessment. This whole film is inflamatory and has only one purpose and that is the silencing of the opposition and they'd be only too happy to violate every aspect of the very same Constitution they purport to support but would love to destroy.
All Freethinkers, agnostics, atheists and even rational theists have to come together as a cohesive unit. Eliminate divisions between us and we can be a formidable force even though we only account for around 15% of the population. We need to unify because individually we wield too little power to accomplish anything.
Don't forget, the (im)Moral Majority started out with just a million or so sheep. The original players are no longer a force but the movement grew and infiltrated (Yeah, it sounds paranoid but, is it?) the military and government. Starting with grass roots politics and culminating in what we now are faced with. These people cannot be dismissed any longer. Our laissez faire attitude allowed the xtian movement to gain dangerous levels of authority in several key areas of government.
The military is rife with fundies proselytizing the recruits and discriminating against non-xtians, even other xtians but not their type. Convincing impressionable recruits that they are god's soldiers and that their duty is to god first and country second. Look no further than the White House for a glimpse into the New Dark Ages.
If we can't come together and develop an offense to counter the fundies we will be looking at the arrival of the New Dark Ages.
This also must be a world wide effort and we need to band together with people and organizations in every country. If this could be accomplished it would make one of the largest organized efforts in history. With Europe largely secular and non-religious there would be power that could not be easily breached.
If we don't start doing something soon we may not be able to do anything at all.
[edit] sorry, got a little carried away. I do think it would be great if we could get something going. It would definitely make it easier to squash them like bugs.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
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Bring it on ,
my atheist sword is polished and sharp .....
Charge ! Sound the horns ! .... to the glory .... god is on my side ....
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positron rifle beats prayer. Now there's something I would pay to see.
When god gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD 1 Thessalonians 5:21
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For everyone who agrees that something should be done, the question is what is the best way to protest this movie?
I think a very visible peaceful protest at the premier would be perfect. Every movie has a premier right? Assuming it does, we should get all area Atheists/Humanists involved. We could spread the word through all the associations and foundations.
The ultimate thing would be to get a couple of the scientists who were unfairly portrayed in this movie to do a simultanious Q and A session adjacent to the premier. Creationists and the general public could be invited to ask questions. Basically this would be like saying "Conspiracy theory be damned, we are here out in the open for public scrutiny. If you think we have something to hide, come and ask us a question.
This does seem a bit far fetched, but maybe not if we had some help from people used to organizing activism. Maybe Brian could give us some tips on how to go about it? I'll send him a PM to let him know about this thread.
"They always say the same thing; 'But evolution is only a theory!!' Which is true, I guess, and it's good they say that I think, it gives you hope that they feel the same about the theory of Gravity and they might just float the f**k away."
The creators of this movie and Ben Steind have been around spilling out most of the schlock that will probably be found in this movie. I'd think that maybe having a flyer ready with refutations of most of the points they plan to bring up would do alot of good.
Most of their points I'm sure everyone has heard before, evolution is "just a theory", the secret Darwinist agenda to suppress competition, the persecution of cdesign proponentsists in the academic world, and how Darwin's work lead straight to Hitler.
Having a calm, comprehensive pamphlet debunking their bunk would probably go a long way to helping people get past the BS and seeing this for what it is, the desparation thrashes of a beaten dogma.
The Regular Expressions of Humanistic Jones: Where one software Engineer will show the world that God is nothing more than an undefined pointer.
New competition for Zeitgeist ? Lets wait for Summer 2008, grab some popcorn and have a good laugh.
Ecrasez l'infame!
Like I said, I would love to just watch it and laugh, but I dont think it's going to be funny when it happenes. This could really set our cause back. The general population has no clue about what is true or not, but put it into a feature film and they will swollow it hook line and sinker. Now when we try and reason with them they will be absolutely sure they have the truth on their side because the movie said so. And wasn't it really sad how they treated these poor Cscientists who only wanted to conduct their life changing research on how their giant sky daddy made the grand canyon with a flood.
Thats cute.
wow. just wow. how something so ridiculous could be taken so seriously really is frightening. is ben's next movie going to be about how "big science" doesn't incorporate astrology into the realm of science either?
Rill