Stein Interview w/ Beck (ductape needed)

[_Sethbag]

The theory of evolution doesn't disprove the idea of God. What it does do, and this is important, is remove one of the justifications many people have used to explain the logic of belief in God - that is, the need for a God to explain things like the creation of humans, animals, etc.

Evolution explains humans, animals, etc. without invoking God. God is that much less useful an explanatory concept, and hence less likely to be believed by a lot of people. What many apologists don't understand is that by evolving their beliefs in the direction of non-specificity of claims, they are weakening the appeal of belief in God. They will ultimately kill it, I believe.

After all, why believe in God if he doesn't actually explain anything, doesn't talk to us directly for vague and unspecified reasons, we don't know much about him or his nature, we don't know what our future will be like with him, he let us believe falsehoods taught by his Prophets for hundreds or even thousands of years, his "Word" in scripture is filled with abominations and mythology, etc. It's like the apologists' version of God is one who for all practical reasons doesn't appear even to exist, except that he really does anyway.

[Guest]

Until we understand how life came about God is safe in his comfy cloud cushion in the sky for a lot of people.

[_critic30]

Critic30, please go and actually watch the YouTube clips originally linked in the first post. In the first link, at 2:57 into the clip Ben Stein says the following:

Unfortunately my computer at work is speakerless. So I looked up an interview transcript that I thought took place on the same day, but apparently it was only the same month. How many times does he need to interview this guy?

My point still stands however, because I believe none of you really believe Stein feels Darwinism should "explain" things like gravity. Moniker already said as much. In this video, Stein appears to have misspoke, and you are all jumping on him even though you're misinterpreting him. The context of his film, along with his other interviews, make it clear what he really means when he uses this term. He is not refering to "Darwinism" as a specific scientific theory, anymore than Dawkins is, in his anti-religion diatribes. He was more precise the first time when he said Darwinistic "establishment."

Charles Darwin thought evolutionary theory was compatible with belief in God. Darwin was a theist during the period in which he developed his theory of evolution. His belief evolved into deism. Later on, he called himself an agnostic. He didn't do that because of evolutionary theory.

Darwin abandoned Christianity immediately after the death of his daughter in 1851, many years prior to the publication of his ground breaking research. There is little evidence to support the notion that he left it because of his research on evolution. There are plenty of theists who accept evolution today. To think it has somehow hurt theism is naïve.

The term "Darwinist" is a bit confusing. It is used in creationist circles to vaguely refer to evolutionary biology that sees no need for the divine. However, there's so many strawman arguments and inconsistent reasoning packed into the term, it's difficult to nail down exactly what is meant beyond "the enemy" and "modern evolutionary biology." They often also use the term "neo-Darwinism" for that.

Granted, but it is also misused by career atheists like Richard Dawkins. Why do they invoke the magic of "Darwinism" to explain things like the mysterious design and function of the human eye, when Charles Darwin explicitly said that natural selection can't explain it?

The theory of evolution doesn't disprove the idea of God. What it does do, and this is important, is remove one of the justifications many people have used to explain the logic of belief in God - that is, the need for a God to explain things like the creation of humans, animals, etc.

It does no such thing.

Evolution explains humans, animals, etc. without invoking God.

This is nonsense, and you are giving more meaning to Stein's comments. Atheists can't just say they believe in evolution and leave it at that. They have to go on the attack and ridicule beliefs others hold sacred. Stein was right to take the debate further and preemptively address these kinds of attacks. You really do think that evolution ("Darwinism"?) "explains" life. This is not true at all.

Evolution only explains how life evolved. That doesn't explain anything about life's origin. Evolutionists who wish to use science to bash religion, still have to address the problem of origin. Evolution doesn't answer this. In fact, it doesn't even come close. It tracks the theory back to its logical end, and then has to propose wild hypotheses about how life "might have" spontaneously came about from non-life. If there were signs of life on the moon or elsewhere in our solar system, this guessing game might sound plausible. But the fact that we appear to be living on the only planet with life, makes us a very unique planet in every sense of the term.

God is that much less useful an explanatory concept, and hence less likely to be believed by a lot of people. What many apologists don't understand is that by evolving their beliefs in the direction of non-specificity of claims, they are weakening the appeal of belief in God. They will ultimately kill it, I believe.

The evidence seems to suggest otherwise. Of course, don't try convincing rabid atheists that this is the case. They are still deluded by this fantasy that science is somehow killing religion.

After all, why believe in God if he doesn't actually explain anything

He explains plenty. If you don't think so, just go ask a theist.

doesn't talk to us directly for vague and unspecified reasons

This is only required of a personal God.

we don't know much about him or his nature

So?

we don't know what our future will be like with him, he let us believe falsehoods taught by his Prophets for hundreds or even thousands of years

What makes you think they are his prophets? You're attacking a straw man again. You're not dealing with the general idea of God. You're being lazy by attacking a specific, easy target concept of God.

[_Moniker]

Oh, I have a MDB problem... I need to go and I want to reply on this thread. :)

critic30, I can't reply right now (leaving for a lil vacation), yet, I will. I wasn't trying to intentionally misrepresent anything, I assure you.

[_EAllusion]

Granted, but it is also misused by career atheists like Richard Dawkins. Why do they invoke the magic of "Darwinism" to explain things like the mysterious design and function of the human eye, when Charles Darwin explicitly said that natural selection can't explain it?

Hey, that's an old creationist/anti-evolution goodie. Charles Darwin did not say that natural selection cannot account for the human eye.

Here's the usual quotemine of Darwin:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

Here's what Darwin fully said:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.

Darwin, C. 1872. The Origin of Species, 6th ed. (pg 143-144)

As you can see, Darwin quite explicitly expects natural selection to explain eyes. He goes into a lot more detail than what I quoted. You can read it here: (http://www.literature.org/authors/darwi ... er-06.html)

The short of it is he concludes: If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

Today, eye evolution is relatively well-worked out. Eyes have evolved independently multiple times in earth's history. Do a simple search on google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ey ... tnG=Search

He explains plenty. If you don't think so, just go ask a theist.

God explains nothing. That's the problem. "God did it" doesn't offer a lot of explanatory power.

As for the topic under question:

http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/ID&PRword.PDF

[_The Dude]

My point still stands however, because I believe none of you really believe Stein feels Darwinism should "explain" things like gravity.

Yes, I believe Stein is smart enough to know this is illogical slop, but he also knows that most of his fans won't fault him for misspeaking in a way that panders to their wishes and desires.

This is how it goes: Darwinism is an atheistic theory that opposes god and means to replace god with materialistic explanations. Since theists believe "god" explains gravity (somehow), then Darwinism can be expected (per creationism's oppositional vew) to give a decent counter explanation for gravity. But Darwinism can't, so theism "explains" more than Darwinism and is a better overall theory. [/illogical slop]

[_EAllusion]

This is how it goes: Darwinism is an atheistic theory that opposes god and means to replace god with materialistic explanations. Since theists believe "god" explains gravity (somehow), then Darwinism can be expected (per creationism's oppositional vew) to give a decent counter explanation for gravity. But Darwinism can't, so theism "explains" more than Darwinism and is a better overall theory. [/illogical slop]

You nailed it.

[_GoodK]

Atheists' worst nightmare indeed.

I guess what bugs me about the whole thing is that so much attention, as per usual, is given to the silly extremes on both sides. Chris Hitchens and Ben Stein may be happy to prostitute themselves and their pretend intellectuality in order to aggrandize themselves or pander to the ignorant, but all it gets the rest of us in the end is a continuing polarization of a very complex issue--and one of no slight importance in our world.

Christopher Hitchens is a world-class journalist. Why do you think he panders to the ignorant? God is Not Great?

The more I read Hitchens, the more I appreciate his style. Even if he isn't on the same level as Harris or Dawkins, he does a good job. I wouldn't even compare him with Stein, who is famous for sounding boring.

[_Leegrid]

I've been following this thread and wanted to post some thoughts.

First, I have found it difficult to disagree with creationists without being accused of ridiculing someone's sacred beliefs. They use the word "sacred" as if to distinguish their beliefs from my own. As if my beliefs are driftwood to their lofty clipper ship. But if you want to put your sacred belief into schools and into news and movies then you better be prepared to not be offended when your sacred beliefs are debated as if they were mere regular ordinary beliefs. It's not like we are barging into Ben Stein's house telling him he's an idiot for believing in God. He put out a movie and making some rather incendiary accusations about Darwinism. Of course that is going to get a response from people precisely because he IS ridiculing people's beliefs, or at least equating their beliefs with those of Nazi's (which is utterly absurd).

But the biggest problem I have with most creationist arguments, especially Ben Stein's, is how misleading, manipulative and utterly un-educational the whole thing is. Stein is not trying to educate, enlighten, or broaden people's understanding. He is merely trying to persuade, and doing and saying anything he has to, including lying to Richard Dawkins and others he interviewed, to move minds to his side. What could I possibly learn from this? It's merely a disturbing look at the state of politics in this country.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate religion. But when it comes to understanding the world I live, scientifically speaking, very often religion is lacking. So I look to science to satisfy my curiosity. Religion, scripture, and the like are much better at helping me understand human relationships than they are at understanding atoms or thermal dynamics. But trying to make religion explain everything feels a little like trying to use a plunger to commute to work. It's religion! Use for religious purposes! I don't look to science to figure out how I should treat my sister. When it comes to my sister, I am most certainly not a natural selection-ist or I would have had to kill her long ago. (a little joke for those who've read this far)

It frustrates me the amount of energy we use in the country to move laterally. Back and forth we go. And "documentaries" like Expelled are the worst type. Learning is good. Are we learning anything? Why are so many of our leaders refusing to divulge the evidence that doesn't support their position? Just look at Expelled's web page. Stein puts out that Galileo and Einstein believed in God and thought it was fundamental to science then the very first comment on his page points out that Einstein said he doesn't believe in a "personal" god that listens to you and answers prayers. That's a freakin’ big distinction! How many creationists would buy into that God? Do you think Einstein would support Stein's movie? How can you call that anything but misleading or lazy research. If Stein simply "misspoke" once then I'd understand. But Stein isn't misspeaking. This is a pattern. At BEST he is incompetent. At worst he's deceitful and deluded.

And what's with the term "professional atheist"? How is that any different than "professional priest" or "professional bishop". Are you shocked that somebody is actually making money off what they say about God? Let me break it to you... God is and always will be good for a buck. So if you want to use "professional atheist" as a derogatory term then I hope you use "professional clergy" as one as well cause really there is no difference. And if you suggest that clergy are different because they "help" people then I would suggest that you have a limited ability to see things from any perspective other
than your own.

On a final note... I'm not as net savvy as others on this thread. Sorry. I registered so I could post on this thread so I'm not as good at quoting or linking. But I didn't want to write a bibliography anyway. So if I get picked to pieces for not sourcing or saying "exactly" what so and so said then I just go ahead and say you win. Yea! You win!

[_Trevor]

Christopher Hitchens is a world-class journalist. Why do you think he panders to the ignorant? God is Not Great?

The more I read Hitchens, the more I appreciate his style. Even if he isn't on the same level as Harris or Dawkins, he does a good job. I wouldn't even compare him with Stein, who is famous for sounding boring.

Because the man can't get his facts straight. One look at his stuff on Mormonism in God is not Great and all kinds of red flags pop up. Hitchens is entertaining in his angry-drunk schtick, but I wouldn't call him particularly substantive. But it's not like I hate the guy. I just see him as another form of infotainment. He's the Archie Bunker of the New Atheists.