Roland Emmerich: the upscale Uwe Boll

I’ve been seeing all the ads for this new movie, 10,000 BC, but I haven’t even been tempted to want to think about going to see it. Come on, people: One Million Years B.C., while even more grossly inaccurate, at least had Raquel Welch in that adorable bikini, and Quest for Fire had the invention of the missionary position. This movie has nothing but nicely modeled woolly mammoths, and I don’t see any teenagers stampeding the head shops for that poster to hang on their bedroom walls.

Anyway, here’s a review of the latest dreck from Emmerich. That’s as close as I’m getting to it.

It’s a propaganda film!

It’s quite clear what the purpose of Ben Stein’s Expelled movie is — notice what they’ve been doing with it. They’ve been shopping it around at screenings that are filtered to keep knowledgeable people out; they’re planning to pay students to attend; they’re relying on the Big Lie to promote the movie; and of course, they had to misrepresent themselves to get interviews.

But now they’ve really done it: they are going to give Florida legislators, sponsored by a representative who has filed one of those bogus “academic freedom” bills, a special, private screening of the movie. None of the critics know what is in it, so this amounts to presenting a slick, prepackaged collection of lies to legislators while denying anyone any opportunity to rebut. Ben Stein should be ashamed of himself; can you think of any similar plan to generate public and political action against a group by spreading blatant lies that they were conspiring to commit horrible acts? Protocols of the Elders of Zion, anyone?

If the producers of Expelled are so confident that they can make a strong case of conspiracy against scientists, then before they start showing this to uninformed politicians, they ought to screen it before scientists and historians and philosophers of science, who will be able to judge it on its merits. Let’s see them show it to a group picked by NCSE, for instance, who would then be able to fairly argue against it. As it is, the cowards of Expelled are doing their best to keep critics in the dark about its content.

There’s another revelation in this sordid Florida affair. Who else is sponsoring this screening of the movie? An organization called the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee. The place looks wonderful on the web: it’s a hands-on science museum with children’s programs, an IMAX theater, a planetarium, etc., with a focus on engineering and aerospace, and it’s an arm of Florida State University and Florida A&M. Here’s their mission statement:

The Center is the K-12 outreach facility of the Florida A&M University – Florida State University College of Engineering and uses aerospace as a theme to foster long-term interest in math, science and technology; create positive learning experiences; and motivate students to pursue careers in these fields.

Sounds nice…but Mike O’Risal dug deeper. After all, why is an overtly pro-physical science organization like this assisting in an attack on the life sciences? It seems that none of the staff at the Challenger Center actually has any kind of degree in the sciences — the head of the planetarium has a P.E. degree, which brings to mind that common public school tactic of letting the football coach teach the science classes. These are people who are grossly unqualified to assess the merits of the movie, and at the very least they have allowed venal interests to override their mission of providing quality science education to the public.

Mike has a collection of email addresses associated with this debacle, including people at FSU, who are going to get tarred with this mess. Write to them! Let them know that an institution that is supposed to represent the university and is supposed to encourage more citizens to get a science education is being misused to do the opposite.

I’ve sent off email. One compromise I’ve suggested: if the screening goes ahead, they should insist that a group of university faculty be allowed to attend, and that those faculty should then be given equal time in a hearing with those same legislators to discuss any misrepresentations in the movie. They have to understand that Expelled is being used as a dishonest propaganda tool to foist a mislabeled “academic freedom” bill on them, one which will attempt to dictate the allowed views of university faculty on politics and evolution.

Wilkins gets shrill

We have a couple of more eye-witnesses to the start of Dawkins’ lecture tour in Arizona, Jim Lippard and John Wilkins. Lippard gives an interesting account, while Wilkins…well, I guess Dawkins interrupted his lecture to walk up the aisle, smack John with a truncheon a few times, rifle his wallet, and as he was stalking away from the poor guy crumpled in his seat, hissed that he was the atheist pope and he could do anything he wanted. At least, that’s what I imagine must have happened, and John hadn’t quite recovered from his concussion before he started writing his complaints.

First of all, he makes a dreadful tactical error, and he should know better — it’s a game we encountered all the time on talk.origins. While accusing Dawkins of irrationally demonizing religion, the running them of his critique, the great dirty word that he uses to bludgeon Dawkins in reply, is to claim with flashing eye and a sneer and a spit that he’s practicing atheism as one of those filthy religions. You can’t piously grant religion the great latitude to believe whatever doesn’t harm others, and defend it as exempt from the kind of criticism Dawkins delivers, while simultaneously damning atheism because you think it is a religion. It’s inconsistent and verging on hypocrisy.

And what is the basis of accusing Dawkins of fomenting vile religion? That he encourages “Us’nThemism” and “derogation of the Other.” Let’s grant Wilkins that this were true (I disagree, however)—this is the defining character of a religion, that it encourages a group to hate another group? This is what religion is? Dawkins is definitely harsh on religion, as am I, but neither of us have apparently achieved the depth of contempt and the simplicity of reduction that Wilkins has…but then, he trained as a theologian, so I guess he would know better.

But of course, the foundation of his accusation is simply not true. There will be no atheist religion. Dawkins’ tour has none of the trappings of the last visit of the pope; he does not set himself up as a moral authority; there will be no Atheist Crusade; we do not have rituals, a sacrament, a dogma. Wilkins’ sloppy flinging of the ‘religion’ insult does more damage to religion than it does to atheism.

But in one respect, he is right. I think the New Atheism is trying to adopt some of the ordinary and worthy human impulses that have been hijacked by religion for so long. To name one specifically, community. I think it is an indictment of the pernicious influence of religion that it has so thoroughly undermined the whole notion of a social community that when secular people with purely secular motives engage in community building, normally rational people gasp in horror, point, and shriek, “He’s creating a cult!” It’s an attitude the religious love to encourage, because it can be used to short-circuit any competition. We can always trust people to use religion as an epithet against any non-religious community, while somehow, conveniently, always neglecting to apply it in the same way to the one class of organization that really deserves it, religion itself.

As for the charge that these New Atheists are unable to tolerate a harmless religion, and that their goal is the elimination of the enemy, that’s complete nonsense. We want to eliminate them in the same sense that we want to eliminate illiteracy; we will educate, we will talk, we will stand up for our ideas. Further, my standard reply to questions about what I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It’s a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It’s not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don’t elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works.

I get the impression that John believes religion has already achieved the innocuous status of bowling. Maybe for you, John, but not for most of the rest of the world.

Dawkins on tour

Richard Dawkins’ tour of the US has begun — you can read an account of his talk in Arizona. Next stops are Berkeley and Stanford, then Madison (I think my boy Connlann is going to try to see that one), then Columbia and NYU, and UT Austin … then it’s up my way to Minneapolis for the American Atheists conference.

If you’re planning to go to one of his talks, though, don’t go just for Dawkins — I hope everyone turns to their neighbors and introduces themselves, and that everyone realizes that there are many of us here, and that we can build a community of reason that will last long after the lecture is over.

Take them to court!

Religion is colliding with the law all over the place.

Actually, it’s theists who believe in nothing, quite fervently

One of the reasons we atheists have to be loud and assertive is that we are floating alone in a vast sea of ignorance. Case in point: here is an artist who has obviously never met an atheist.

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I am expressing my feeling towards the very Idea of Atheism. I almost pity those who have such beliefs. I’m not saying they are wrong or right. I’m just saying that what they believe in is more depressing than any other possibility.

So I made this simple picture to express my feelings for somebody who believes in nothing.

here we see a person sitting in a blank room without any doors or windows. What is most troubling is the fact that this person wants to be here, and is unwilling to move from his chair. Alone, neglected, and lost to the ravages of time. without anything to grab onto and hold as a symbol of his own identity. Those who seek nothing as a reward shall ultimately receive it.

I don’t think Atheists can even believe in love, which is the saddest part.

If this picture offends you, remember that it is not directed at you. Even if you are an atheist.

Atheists don’t believe in love? Where does this nonsense come from? This fellow is a fool who sits alone himself, imagining what atheists must think, and he conjures up this ridiculous picture based on the idea that atheists are lonely nihilists who believe in nothing. I know a lot of atheists, and no, his portrayal is not accurate.

I’m not offended by the picture — I’m just sickened by the smug ignorance of its creator. There are a lot of comments over there, too, all of which are getting hidden away by the host, which tells us who has got his eyes firmly closed in this debate. I think he needs to retitle his picture to “Self Portrait.”

This atheist simply believes in all that is (which is quite a lot), and doesn’t believe in that which isn’t (which denial, to some theists, seems to represent a complete denial of the universe…which tells us more about their deluded mindset than ours.) Since the artist doesn’t understand that we do believe in something (including love), here’s a short, simple creed for the godless.

An atheist’s creed

I believe in time,
matter, and energy,
which make up the whole of the world.

I believe in reason, evidence and the human mind,
the only tools we have;
they are the product of natural forces
in a majestic but impersonal universe,
grander and richer than we can imagine,
a source of endless opportunities for discovery.

I believe in the power of doubt;
I do not seek out reassurances,
but embrace the question,
and strive to challenge my own beliefs.

I accept human mortality.

We have but one life,
brief and full of struggle,
leavened with love and community,
learning and exploration,
beauty and the creation of
new life, new art, and new ideas.

I rejoice in this life that I have,
and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
and an earth that will abide without me.

I don’t believe it

Everyone has been sending me this story about how a researcher has deduced from the crazy talk in the bible that Moses was high on drugs. I don’t believe it. Sure, it’s possible, but the information is insufficient, and the hypothesis is unnecessary.

Look at Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Robert Tilton, Billy Graham, Kathryn Kuhlman, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker, Ted Haggard, Kent Hovind, Oral Roberts, Aimee Semple McPherson, Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn, Fulton Sheen, Charles Coughlin, and every single little podunk charismatic and fundamentalist preacher you can find in any town in the country. They all report visions and conversations with a god, and get ’em going and they’ll start babbling apocalyptic nonsense ala Revelation … and they aren’t all high on psychedelic drugs. Human beings have a phenomenal capacity for self-delusion and fantasy; we don’t need to postulate strange drugs in the absence of evidence to explain lunatic religious behavior, and it’s actually a bit of a cop-out.