Horrorfest List

Borderland

Crazy Eights - FuriBunneh

The Deaths of Ian Stone - Domitella

Lake Dead

Mulberry Street

Nightmare Man

Tooth and Nail

Unearthed

The Abandoned - Apathy (random pick)

Dark Ride

The Gravedancers

The Hamiltons - The Wanderer

Penny Dreadful

Reincarnation

Unrest

Wicked Little Things

Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror - FatOigeon!

The Tripper - Dweller


Okay, choose your second picks or jump in late and grab one!

Natalie Portman's arse was in it?

Ohhhh yeah. On the DVD there's a short prologue and Natalie bares her bum.

I should do a review of Smart People...

I think I'm going to fast forward my Friday movie and go see EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed tonight before it leaves the area.

A Ben Stein documentary. Should be interesting...

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)
90 minutes, Rated PG because of someone smoking (??)
Rating of Fury: B
Tongster Factor: 1 (It’s Ben Stein. You really want to see his T & A?)


It’s a shame Stein & Company chose the Michael Moore type of documentary.

It’s difficult to rate Expelled. As a documentary, it deserves an F for resorting to dirty tricks which I'll discuss further on. However, I do think much of Stein’s argument is worth listening to, and the logic of that argument made me reflect on my own values, and for that I recommend the movie in spite of some cheap persuasive tactics used.



Evolutionists have no idea how life started.

The documentary is a defense of Intelligent Design, which does not necessarily state that God slapped everything together, but that some form of intelligence got the ball rolling (but when you see the next pic and the I.D.’ers theories of the origins of life, it’s hard not to separate I.D. from Creationism). Stein interviews scientists from both camps and uses a Berlin Wall metaphor for the polarization of two theories in the minds of most scientists. The academic world stands firmly in the Darwinian camp, unaccepting of the merest whisper of I.D. in their circles, even though they really don’t have a clue how life began either.



The I.D.'ers answers aren’t much better. This is why I’m agnostic.

Rationally, Expelled hits a home run. Watching Stein reveal how the belief in Evolution can lead to atheism, a lack of free will and hope, and no meaning in human life is simply brilliant. The film also shows the persecution of some scientists that support I.D., which equates to nothing less than total academic shunning. Academia have become so engrossed in supporting the status quo that they are unwilling and/or unable to consider alternative points of view, or must hold their tongues.



Um, no.

If the Berlin Wall metaphor was too subtle, Stein then bashes you over the head by taking us to a Nazi gas chamber and Dachau. Why? It’s insulting that Expelled resorts to cheap emotional tugs suggesting that Evolution = Eugenics = Holocaust when the documentary had such strong arguments otherwise. Plus when you consider that the documentary is trying to distinguish Intelligent Design from Creationism but then turns around and throws this ‘Ooo! They’s bad!’ ball of mud at you, it weakens their whole defense. And then there’s proof that some of the scientists were misled to what they were being interviewed for. Totally sleazy.



A high point of the film – Stein making Richard Dawkins squirm.

Watching Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was like watching my Philadelphia Eagles play football: eye-opening and loaded with talent, but would have done considerably better without all those damn penalties. I wish Expelled would have taken the high road the entire time, because the logic supporting at least a life-starting combination of Evolution and Intelligent Design is very strong, but because of the smear tactics, it makes the I.D. camp out to be as fanatical as the Darwinians claim.

I doubt you can find the movie running anywhere now - it was only released a week ago and the documentary’s already pulled from most theatre chains – but when Expelled comes out on DVD, it’s worth renting.

And if my memory serves me correctly, Evolution went through the same growing pains 150 years ago.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Furious,

I would have less of a problem with Intelligent Design if they skipped the whole, "we don't know how this happened, so it must have been tampered with by something so let's just say it must have been God and not think about that bit anymore."

Although, to be fair, scientists seem to be wandering down that path too, "Oh, we don't know why this happened, but it did, so let's just move on."

I'm more of an agnostic than anything, but I don't see why explaining a miracle makes it any less miraculous. There was a bit in Small Gods where Om was snarking about turning water into wine - that sunlight/water gets turned into grapes and grape juice gets turned into wine - that's just as miraculous.

The begruding admittance of Richard Dawkins noting that it's possible life was brought to Earth by an external source blew me away. It's the 21st century and we don't know a friggin' thing!

so last night I went up to the husband while he was cooking and said, "so...Episode II [we're working our way through Star Wars] is in the mail. we should get this horror movie called The Abandoned in the mail Monday," and ran. the bastard chased me down and gave me a serious talking (to while I snickered). if I don't survive to post a review, you all know why.

quote:

Originally posted by DoomBunneh:
The film also shows the persecution of some scientists that support I.D., which equates to nothing less than total academic shunning. Academia have become so engrossed in supporting the status quo that they are unwilling and/or unable to consider alternative points of view, or must hold their tongues.

<snip>

And if my memory serves me correctly, Evolution went through the same growing pains 150 years ago.

I know this isn't a discuss-science thread, but I will say that is one thing that bugs me about the scientific world. they ridicule/villainize people who believed that the world was flat and were hesitant to accept alternate ideas, and yet they behave in the exact same manner once they have latched onto an idea (any idea, really). no one's really open-minded enough to think about alternate possibilities, evolutionists and creationists/IDers alike, when you can't prove anything either way.

however, as a creationist, I will say that it's hard to get anybody to take you seriously enough to actually listen to you on this wise, which is why lots of people end up pulling dirty tricks. you get tuned out otherwise. I agree with your assessment of the whole thing; I'm just saying that I can understand why he resorted to cheap tactics.

aw, I thought it was gonna be about school exclusions and stuff


I might try and watch this, but the ID argument seems to be that 'we don't know' = 'God' and that is unlikely to be good for the ol' blood pressure

except that's very much not what the idea really is. part of it, yes, is that you can't legitimately rule out the possibility because we don't know for sure either way, but a lot of scientists—not quacks!—research the possibility in the same way evolutionist scientists research evolutionary possibilities.

If there's one thing I know from personal experience, it's much easier on you emotionally if you believe there's something out there than if you don't. There's a downward spiral of thinking that occurs when you believe 'this is it and there's nothing else'.

The documentary interviews a scientist who's a staunch atheist and he has brain cancer, and frankly he's looks terrified about the notion of dying. Who wants that?

nobody. although it is admittedly brave to stick to your guns even when it terrifies you.

only... I remember one twits argument (coupla years ago a small town near Harrisburg PA wanted to teach ID) was that the fossil record has huge gaps, so that just proves that it was God messing with the design. only, thing was, the era he was rambling about didn't have all that many invertebrates.

Plus, how many fossils are still down there, never been dug up, or got dug up a long time ago and turned into a rockery/buried under a parking lot?

/end hijack, although I suppose we could babble about it elsewhere.

True, but I'll leave brave to everyone else.

maybe I don't think about it deeply enough, but when I realised that actually I was probably an athiest, I was most put out that the list of questions I had to ask Shakespeare were pretty useless

That's one movie I've meant to check out, Furi. I get frustrated by a lot of the ID people - they tend to not bother to update their proofs nearly often enough and some of the proofs are just simply dumb - but there's some solid science writing on the subject. And, yeah, it's "we don't know=God" the same way xenogenesis is "we don't know=asteroids."

quote:

Originally posted by DoomBunneh:
If there's one thing I know from personal experience, it's much easier on you emotionally if you believe there's something out there than if you don't. There's a downward spiral of thinking that occurs when you believe 'this is it and there's nothing else'.

The documentary interviews a scientist who's a staunch atheist and he has brain cancer, and frankly he's looks terrified about the notion of dying. Who wants that?

I think that can be true, but at the same time, if you don't belive something, can you make yourself belive it just to make yourself feel better? I can't - I was athiest long before my grandpa got Altzhiemers, but you wath someone with that and you know there's no soul. Everything that makes you you is in your body, your brain whatever.

but if it ultimately doesn't mean anything, then why are we aware of it...

OK, so that's not really a point.

quote:

Originally posted by DoomBunneh:
True, but I'll leave brave to everyone else.

heh. as will I, bunneh.

Maeve—unfortunately, since ID is rooted in religion (as is evolutionary theory for most people, although they don't generally want to think about it that way), you get a lot of people running their mouths about it when they have no real scientific credentials. and, in all honesty, it isn't generally taught scientifically/scholastically, so the fundamentals are harder for a layperson to explain. too many people believe it because they were taught to believe it, not because they've done any studying (which is also true for many people who believe in evolution, I've found, but they don't have the same problem since evolution is more widely accepted). it puts a bad face on the whole idea, when the concept itself is legitimate (if the idea that a god of some sort could exist is one you allow for intellectually).