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Phil Plait lays it out regarding the joke that is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Unfortunately, it seems the only intelligence not allowed is that of the people who produced this drek.

better summary: The Bad Astronomer points out that the Expelled movie's official website states that evolution leads to atheism leads to Holocaust.

hmm. people have gotten in trouble for conflating evolution and the Holocaust before.... http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4877_52.htm

Posted on the expelled website is the following garbage.
"*SPOILER!! […]
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."

Now I think we're being a bit overly harsh, here. Sure, it has its faults, but I think Expelled! raises some interesting points - namely, that apparently religious people think it's acceptable to lie and warp the truth to prove their point.

I never pegged Ben Stein as an anti-evolution kind of guy.

Nova: Intelligent Design on Trail
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-404729062 ...

(edit: sorry this is so long.)
seems to me that Godwin's Law should take effect. So the argument is over now, right?
Look guys (by guys i mean my fellow Christians who are fighting this silly fight) God is a big boy. Evolution can't hurt him ...well not my God at least. My God is all powerful and wise. and, frankly, smart enough to come up with a fancy scheme like evolution. Are you suggesting God isn't smart enough to make evolution?
Just tell my how it would diminish God if evolution were real? Would it make him less powerful? or less real? no.
Does it contradict the Bible? well the Jews (remember they wrote Genesis) don't believe that the two stories in Genesis are literally true. They believe they are stories. One to show God's love and one to show God's power. So evolution doesn't contradict the bible: it contradicts a tortured interpretation of the King James version (but not all of the King James versions.)
What you're doing is hurting the church. It makes Christians look ignorant and drives people away from church. This is the Opposite of what we are supposed to do. Church should be a place of peace and acceptance. No, I don't care how right you are. No, I don't care how mean they were to you. No, I don't care if they don't believe what they should. And I don't care how much evidence you have to prove your point. Shouting is not loving. So stop. You're hurting the church and driving people away instead of bringing them in. Anything that drives people away from church is wrong. (and here's a fun fact (according to surveys) the number 1 reason given for not attending church? An argument with someone in the church. sooo science isn't driving people from God, we are. Every time you yell, someone leaves the church. It's almost as if the only people who would be hurt by an end to this fight are politicians. ...weird)
So stop.
just be kind, be patient, be Christian. Everything else is unimportant. Everything.

movie is connects?

That's the worst summary that I've ever seen hit the front page.

Next thing you know they'll be connecting evolution to Xenu.

the creationist keep shooting themselves in the foot everytime they try to bash on science.

In my relatively short life, I have noticed that if someone wants to make a point, they can link just about anything with something else, no matter how unrelated the bond may be.

IE religion > pop-tarts > spaghetti > Satan. Yes, they may not mean anything together, but if you logically think....the Pastor (or religious leader) has a bug up his arse about Pop-Tarts, goes on a long spiel about how evil they are. Most Christians get a little peeved when they hear an Atheist call their god the 'flying spaghetti monster' and from the point of view of the congregation....Pop-Tarts, Spaghetti, and Satan all can be brought up in the same morning service...and could be linked subtly.

As a Jewish person myself (and an pastafarian), the parallel to the Holocaust greatly offends me

Tarnishing attacks dont need any actual connection - they only need to be able to force people to associate the target with something unpleasant. Imagine, for example, if a fast food chain were to fund a (Deniable) advertising campaign plastering posters on billboards showing their competitor's packageing stuffed with what looks a lot like dog crap. This would create an association: People seeing the targeted companies logo would immediately feel revolted, and their sales would plumet. But the harder they try to fight this slur, the more they have to mention the dog crap, and the greater the association becomes. It works just as well for the anti-marketing of ideas: 'Evolution hitler nazi evolution genocide racism evolution slavery evolution...' - repeat until the public conciousness has all the concepts firmly linked together. Even if people dont conciously know why they now believe evolution to be dangerous, the subconcious impact will be there.

This is so delicious it HAS to be fattening.

Ben Stein sucks balls. He defends Nixon to this day. I imagine he's a rather dim bulb behind that monotone mumbling.

This, of course, makes perfect sense. While we all know that the Vatican signed treaties with both Nazi Germany and Italy, we all *really* know this was because Nazi's were atheists. Only atheists would agree to sign treaties with the most organized christian organization on earth, in exchange for giving the vatican controls over their schools.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense...

I listened to an interview with the "creator" of Expelled he could barely make a coherent argument FOR his position and he had no understanding of science or it's process.

"NAZI" isn't an acronym. =.=
*Nazi
/end nitpicking

Yet another reason for me to dislike and distrust Christians. I will say this again, mark my words, Christianity will be the downfall of America on less we put a big leach on these people and I mean right now before they do something stupid to try and bring about the Rapture and kill a bunch of people. Believe me, they will try to do it. And, they say Islam is a threat to the US, I say *****, they'd better be looking at the Christian church instead of the Middle East.

Ben Stein is an idiot. People think he's so smart, but he only pretends to be.

badgrammar.com more like it.

I need a torrent now damnit.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

I find the term 'The Holocaust' rather offensive when applied to but a single group of people. The British conducted a eugenics campaign against the Irish for centuries that claimed several times the victims of the Nazi eugenics campaign. 'A Holocaust' would be more accurate. Hell, America has caused the deaths of almost five million Iraqis since the beginning of the 'Oil for Food' extortion of the early 90s.

No one ethnic group can claim exclusive franchise to the 'Holocaust'; too many groups have suffered under mass-murderers, and in recent times.

The idea of racial divides were around long before evolution correct? Such as French seeing their selves as "civilized" over other Europeans. I am currently reading Mein Kampf and Hitler wanted to bring the German people to greatness for being German and in his youth he even considered German Jews as German but despised their "silly" religion...

I would think evolution just shows us that we are all human and not better then each other because of our nationality...

Besides Hitler... Was crazy.

Nazi's were catholic though......

Ben Stein is a ***** moron. He should have kept his money and bought himself a clue.

Wow, I have lost all my respect for Ben Stein. He was a funny man, and from what I've heard very smart, I mean he was Richard Nixon's speech writer. You've gotta have some intelligence to do that. I don't ever want to see anything he is ever again. And in regards to that movie, I'm getting really sick and tired of people trying to attack evolution and atheism. YES I AM AN ATHEIST AND I BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION. I don't bother you about your beliefs so quit trying to mess with mine. Besides my beliefs are based on facts, not stories. If you want to watch a great documentary watch "The Root of All Evil" By Richard Dawkins. Here's the link http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9002284641 ... . Watch both parts.

Eh, the argument of Hitler being an atheist vs. Christian is still around.

Neither side wants him. From what I have found...All of his statements making me think he was a Christian, were in the 1920's to mid 1930' or so...

All of his statements making me think he was an atheist are from later on...During the war and stuff. Makes me think he switched sides at some point.

I wish this subject could be rationally explored without an agenda. It was a fascinating period in history. Essentially, at some level it really did boil down to Rationalists vs. Metaphysicists. The Germans were a very educated population and things in Nietzsche's work resonated for them. The interesting thing to me is that they used Nietzsche's arguments from "Beyond Good and Evil" to rationalize their oppression of minorities in almost exactly the same way that people of religion have used religious texts to rationalize that kind of act. I think that at some level the lesson to be learned is that it doesn't matter whether you believe in religion or not, you'll take what you believe and warp it to rationalize whatever atrocity you feel like committing.

Is anyone else confused?

'Evolution' is just knowledge. It is the name we have given our understanding of the process of life changing. Knowledge itself isn't evil, its what people do with it that is evil. Simply understanding evolution does not promote or require people to follow eugenics or genocide or anything else. I have tried to explain this to several anti-evolutionists including my cousin (he was on Digg last year for being fired from a school in Sisters, Oregon for teaching creationism), but they refuse to admit that evolution promotes nothing except understanding. Atomic knowledge does not force us to build atomic bombs, chemistry does not force us to make explosives or poisons, etc., etc. Creationists only use the evolution-genocide kind of argument because their leaders tell them to, but they don't apply the same logic to anything else.

I love how in the same breath as saying how absurd connecting the Holocaust to evolution is, they bring it around as a way to take a cheap shot at the American presence in Iraq.

Its kinda sad that there are people so stupid today to believe in creationism.
Um, to all you bible thumpers, 1 year wasn't properly defined until 500 AD, and even then it was flaky until pope Gregory properly and finally defined the year and the age since jesus. So lets accept that the last 2000 years were correct. Anything before that is questionable, and thats why the christian calendar works since the accepted time of jesus. Anything written in the old testament is of a questionable age, like people living 1000 years, where the average age of a person was 30....hmm something doesnt fit here right. to the last. The age of the earth is NOT DEFINED anywhere in the bible, some im not sure where the figure comes from. The jewish figure of ~5700 since moses or whatever was created in 1970.

The bottom line is, creationists are stupid and they dont understand that any date the bible refers to, no matter ow far back is mostly symbolic and for the moust part theoretically the year where the first monotheism in the middle east appeared, thats why the pope calls those christians defective, because they really take the bible too literally....

Eugenics and Evolution are two completely different things.

So, let me get this straight.
We are debating a movie summary, written by someone who hasn't even seen it himself. Badastronomer here is writing a review based on a summary, written by someone who saw the film. How is that a reliable source? Watch the movie, then let's have a discussion about it.

hey do u remember simpsons ep , two aliens talkin and lookin at earth
its like
wtf they doing !!!evolving'???¿?¿
no its a mass hysteria , they all go crazy , i think its a dead end for that specie
yep me too

"Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self­glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them."

"First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward."

"If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated."

I wonder what sort of evolution Martin Luther believed in?