[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] What the...?!?

Now, at first, when Ben Stein signed on to do the movie Expelled, I simply thought to my self that it was really no big deal, and that he was just another god-soaked fool who throws science out the window when he's been told it conflicts with his rather narrow world view.

I was wrong.

I think Ben Stein is utterly bat shit insane.

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. [PZ] Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed.

I admit, I am stunned that Mr. Stein, a game-show host, would actually be willing to go this far --so far, in fact, that he's essentially dropping his trousers and leaving a huge, heaping mound of steaming shit upon the corpses of his dead ancestors. He's openly lying about the motives behind the Holocaust. He knows it, we know it, yet he's seeking to perpetuate a lie to create not a remembrance of that human tragedy, but an open denial of it by scrambling to conflate Evolution with the slaughter of his people.

This whole interview is beyond insane, and, in a way, I feel sad for Ben Stein. His grip on reality has become so loose that even looking in the mirror has got to be a terrifying thing. He is scared. He is confused. And, sadly, the world knows it and is not afraid to confront it. Take this example:

Stein: We’re saying teach what is… what the evidence takes you to. I mean, the evidence does not take you to Darwinism about, uh, about, uh, as to the foundations of life. Darwin just had nothing to say about that. The evidence doesn’t take you to Darwinism about astronomy or about the laws of physics or of thermodynamics.

This is a level of gibberish I'd expect from someone who had dropped out of the earliest levels of high-school. However, Ben Stein has a college education. I believe that in high school, as dreadful as some of my science teachers were, I clearly knew the difference between Physics, Astronomy, and Evolution, and I had no need to contrive some sort of unified field for them out of a mythology concocted by late Bronze Age sheep and goat herders. So, why would BenStein, a college educated person, expect to find the answers to Astronomy in a Biology classroom?

And, he continues:

Crouch: What can people of faith do? What do you hope comes from this film?

Stein: Well, we hope that people who have children in schools will tell their children that if the teacher says Darwinism created everything and that there is no explanation for anything in the scientific world except Darwinism, that the student will say, well, Ms. Smith — or whatever the teacher’s name is — how did life begin? What keeps the planets in their orbits? Is there any proof of a separate species ever being seen to evolve?

This is an insult to just about everyone. The only people not insulted by this gibberish would have to be those whose minds are as addled as Stein's. "Dawinism" doesn't create things. What does he think Astronomy does? What does he think Biology is about? Why is he trying to conflate Darwin with creation? It's almost as though I could give Ben Stein the owner's manual for my Jeep and tell him to look up the meatloaf recipe inside. When he's sitting at a movie, does he ask people to rub sunscreen on his back? When the phone is ringing, does he open his microwave thinking he's being fed?

Perhaps the most disgusting (an ironic considering this guy is shilling eyedrops) is this:

Stein: … Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Really?

So, that science responsible for curing smallpox and polio is actually, nefariously, killing people? The understanding of the human body and its development at the most minuscule levels possible is somehow an evil murderous plot?

Perhaps the greatest crime in all of this is that Mr. Stein has conveniently overlooked reality in his open and wildly erroneous conflation of Evolution with The Holocaust, and by doing so, he's rendered the lives of those who both died and survived during this tragedy completely meaningless. He's skipped over the real history and source of acrimony among the German people toward the Jews. He is trying to distract humanity from studying the real reasons behind this tragedy, and he is doing to so pimp a movie and a resligion. Moreover, that which he has overlooked are the raging, anti-semitic writings of a well-known German monk named Martin Luther, and his work On the Jews and Their Lies (written more than two hundred years before Darwin was even born). And, here's Luther's proposal on how to drive the Jews from Germany. And, call me crazy, but I think the words of this Christian monk echo the sentiments of the Nazi's considerably more than those of a simple English naturalist:

1. "First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. ..."
2. "Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. ..."
3. "Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. ..."
4. "Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ..."
5. "Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. ..."
6. "Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. ... Such money should now be used in ... the following [way]... Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [a certain amount]..."
7. "Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow... For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."
8. "If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country" and "we must drive them out like mad dogs." [31]

I think one of the most disgusting things humans can do is rewrite their history. We learn from our history. And, as a result, we do our best to see that the tragedies and horrors of our past do not happen again. Ben Stein is tossing all this out the window in favor of rewriting human history in a feeble and fumbling attempt to cram god and ignorance down the throats of those who just wish to learn in an environment free of mythology and fear-filled superstition.

-DP

(Hat tip to The Friendly Atheist)

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 4/29/2008 08:42:00 PM