Ben Stein: Science Leads to Killing People

[drpmjhess]

Originally Posted by buffalo

I have not seen the movie, but does one or two points invalidate the whole movie, or are you just doing the same thing you accuse him of?

What I said above doesn't invalidate the movie. I just wondered whether this particular thread was about sex education or about Ben's claims about Darwin advocating killing people.

[drpmjhess]

Originally Posted by drpmjhess

What I said above doesn't invalidate the movie. I just wondered whether this particular thread was about sex education or about Ben's claims about Darwin advocating killing people.

No single claim invalidates a movie. But for the record, Ben Stein lies about the folloiwng:

(1) Evolution leading to Naziism
(2) The relationship between science and religion
(3) Richard Sternberg
(4) Guillermo Gonzalez
(5) Caroline Crocker
(6) Robert Marks
(7) Pamela Winnick
(8) Michael Egnor
(9) Evolution leading to atheism

Many other films tell untruths, but they are usually fiction films. Expelled purports to be a documentary, so I do think the matter of lying is more serious. In my view it invalidates the film as seriously as Dan Brown's lying invalidated The Da Vinci Code.

Petrus

[MaryJohnZ]

Originally Posted by drpmjhess

The last three posts, while interesting, seem to have relatively little to do with Expelled. Will we at some point be getting back to the compelling subject of Ben Stein lying about Darwin killing people?

Ben Stein made the clear link between Planned Parenthood, the science community, eugenics and the Nazis. So that is where the past three links come from.

Science kills people...what is the difference if the gas chamber is a room in a building or a mother's womb? plus you have all the dark side of science doing researcg on human body parts, tiny human embryos, genetic engineering, all the ways the human person is used as a machine. Women renting out their wombs. men selling their 'seed'...etc. I would see this as a direct effect of teaching straight Darwinism and neglecting to include any evidence that there is a Creator, which is what ID does.

Plus all the effect the use of artificial hormones is having on the environment, changing life forms...even the songs of some birds and in some areas of dense population where men are intaking female hormones their sperm counts are going down.

http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/En...nvironment.htm probably not the bst site as it is extremely technical, at least for me as a non-scientist. But it has a lot of links.

As to effectiveness of abstinence education:

LATEST NEWS : SEXUAL INTEGRITY PROGRAMS HELP REDUCE TEEN PREGNANCY, ACCORDING TO TWO NEW STUDIES
POSTED: APR 22, 2008

Press Statement
April 22, 2008
Contact: Kimberly Martinez
Phone: 202-204-3055

Sexual Integrity Programs Help Reduce Teen Pregnancy, According to Two New Studies

WASHINGTON, APRIL 22, 2008 – While there is much debate over the efficacy of abstinence-until-marriage programs, the evidence in favor of these programs continues to mount.
(...)
"Today, researchers at the National Press Club presented two new studies that highlight encouraging findings on abstinence education. The first study, conducted by Dr. Stan Weed of the Institute of Research and Evaluation, assessed the effectiveness of abstinence education in reducing the sexual activity of students in Virginia middle schools. According to Dr. Stan Weed, the evaluation shows that abstinence education programs cut the rate of sexual activity among students roughly in half. The second paper, by Christine Kim and Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, presented a comprehensive review of 21 prior studies of the effectiveness of abstinence and virginity pledge programs. According to Christine Kim, 16 out of 21 studies of abstinence education found youth who received abstinence education had lower rates of sexual activity when compared to youth who did not receive abstinence training.

Most parents are shocked to learn that opponents of abstinence education who promote condoms and contraceptives to youth out-fund abstinence-until-marriage programs by a rate of nearly $12 to $1. Yet, contraceptive programs continue to be funded with little oversight or peer reviewed evaluations to demonstrate their effectiveness. “I challenge contraceptive programs to conduct the same rigorous studies of their programs as abstinence programs do” said Leslee Unruh.

Further, she said, “Abstinence programs set a clear standard for youth while contraceptive programs ridicule abstinent teens and lower the bar for all teens. It’s like an anti-drug campaign going into the school and saying, ‘Well, doing drugs is bad but here’s a clean needle, a little bit to get you started and here’s where you can go when you run out of drugs and your parents will never need to know.’ Kids don’t respond positively to a mixed message!”

Abstinence-until-marriage education, when taught according to the Title V A-H definition, offers youth a clear standard and expectation for behavior, a definition and picture of what a healthy relationship looks like, the training to make positive decisions in spite of the peer pressure, education and information about how other risk behaviors like drinking and drugs affect their decision making process and the freedom to focus on healthy and positive goals in their lives.

“Opponents of abstinence education seek to create ‘abstiphobics’ out of policy makers and parents by disregarding the evidence that abstinence works. However, they can no longer disregard the youth whose lives are changing daily because of the sexual integrity that abstinence-until-marriage education creates,” said Leslee Unruh

Ben Stein's film was about a lot more than just Darwin Vs ID, it was about the damage done to all of us by people willing to promote a view of life that virtually extinguishes the concept of seeking God. Allowing ID into schools and research labs and acknowledging that their is evidence of things not being mere coincidence or chance, allows for that window to be opened.

http://www.abstinence.net/library/in...p?entryid=3727

Anyone who thinks that telling kids how to have sex outside of marriage and implying they can do it 'safely' is going to cut teen pregnancy is not thinking logically. We can go back and forth with statistics and reports, all from differeing sides, but what is the moral choice here according to Church teaching? what do you and I as catholics trying to build God's Kingdom here have a moral responsibility to do in terms of leading others to the light?


God Bless everyone,

Mary John Z

[SeekerJen]

Originally Posted by MaryJohnZ

Science kills people...what is the difference if the gas chamber is a room in a building or a mother's womb?

For the final time, so as not to insult the millions of scientists like myself and your daughter, who have no interest in killing people or using their talents for evil, could those of you who are apparently anti-science please make the distinction between "science kills people" and "some scientists use their skills to kill people or some people use the knowledge obtained by science to kill people"? And for the record, once again, Hitler was a failed artist, not a scientist.

I'm not sure if there's a complete misunderstanding about the breadth and depth of scientific research, ignorance that most scientists are NOT working directly in evolutionary biology, or fear of something that contradicts a literal interpretation of the bible (which is not mandated in Catholic teaching). But I'm getting tired of hearing over and over that science kills and thus it's bad, evil, people who are scientists are all atheists/eugenics supporters/Planned Parenthood supporters (which is so far from the truth that it's not even funny), etc. Lots of things lead to killing if misused. Apparently it's rather easy to die by drowning, and people do employ that method to kill others. However, that doesn't mean that water is evil.

[MaryJohnZ]

Originally Posted by SeekerJen

For the final time, so as not to insult the millions of scientists like myself and your daughter, who have no interest in killing people or using their talents for evil, could those of you who are apparently anti-science please make the distinction between "science kills people" and "some scientists use their skills to kill people or some people use the knowledge obtained by science to kill people"? And for the record, once again, Hitler was a failed artist, not a scientist.

I'm not sure if there's a complete misunderstanding about the breadth and depth of scientific research, ignorance that most scientists are NOT working directly in evolutionary biology, or fear of something that contradicts a literal interpretation of the bible (which is not mandated in Catholic teaching). But I'm getting tired of hearing over and over that science kills and thus it's bad, evil, people who are scientists are all atheists/eugenics supporters/Planned Parenthood supporters (which is so far from the truth that it's not even funny), etc. Lots of things lead to killing if misused. Apparently it's rather easy to die by drowning, and people do employ that method to kill others. However, that doesn't mean that water is evil.

I can appreciate you feelings but science without God, which is how it is being defined these days can be evil, and I like the quote you have on the bottom of your post by the way. I know it may seem like some of what I am bringing up is really putting too much emphasis on the negatives, but those negatives are not heard in the main stream media. God sees all of this. when I stop and realize how much pain is out there because of science being removed from God., It is something that we all should be saying more about. People hold complaints against the church for not speaking out against the Nazi regime, and someday they will say the same about Catholics who sit back comfortably and do nothing, say nothing, about what is going on right now. Aand when I see childhood attacked so directly in our schools, that is something that God must see as a great evil.

Perhaps this whole topic of Ben Stein's movie is intense simply because what he was lifting was a veil over something which has
been very toxic and has gone unnoticed. If that seems too hard to take because you would rather stay to the comfortable Darwin Vs ID topic without the fallout of accepting only Darwin, then you really don't want to encounter the truth Ben Stein was getting at.
He was getting at a lot more than some people losing jobs here and there...

MaryJohnZ

[jaxson]

I find it hilarious how the sheep in this country argue over whether public schools should teach "abstinence vs non-abstinence" or "evolution over creationism" etc. when the whole department of education itself is unconstitutional. You may as well argue whether your neighbor deserves to be executed by sword or by gun, the whole time forgetting that he is innocent in the first place. If we simply followed our laws and had all private schools, all these phony issues would not exist, since you could then simply send your child to a school of your choice, and with competing private schools working in a capitalistic market, the most profitable ones would be those that cater to the tastes of the majority of parents. And if worse came to worse, just home school. Alas, our leviathan government and their puppet, the mainstream media, dangles these trinkets in front of us as a way to distract us from the corpses hanging in their closet.

[drpmjhess]

Originally Posted by MaryJohnZ

Science kills people...what is the difference if the gas chamber is a room in a building or a mother's womb? God Bless everyone,
Mary John Z

Religion kills people too, but I don't see you calling for a thorough questioning of religion.

[drpmjhess]

Originally Posted by drpmjhess

Religion kills people too, but I don't see you calling for a thorough questioning of religion.

As long as we're at it, law kills people (false capital convictions); professional sports kill people (plenty of accidents); restaurants kill people (chokings, accidental fugu poisonings). So why pick only on science?

[MaryJohnZ]

Originally Posted by drpmjhess

Religion kills people too, but I don't see you calling for a thorough questioning of religion.

Not authentic, true religion.

[MaryJohnZ]

Originally Posted by drpmjhess

As long as we're at it, law kills people (false capital convictions); professional sports kill people (plenty of accidents); restaurants kill people (chokings, accidental fugu poisonings). So why pick only on science?

Law kills people only inorder to protect other people (self defense differs from murder)

Accidents in sports--- no one has chosen to bring that about and that is what we are discussing, killing associated with free choice to kill.

Accidents in restaurants---again, not relevant

Science ( science without God) has become an agent of agendas, some of which are truly ungodly in their nature. when you remove the God of Life from His own Creation you will end up with death... The question is how to integrate God into science and how can Godfearing men and women work in that field freely and responsibly. Science can be a good thing, but in the present moment and time it is being used by people who really just believe people are a higher animal form.

[PhilVaz]

Pardon me for this important interruption:

A Message from Ben Stein's Grandson (wmv video)

Phil P

[SeekerJen]

Originally Posted by MaryJohnZ

Science ( science without God) has become an agent of agendas, some of which are truly ungodly in their nature. when you remove the God of Life from His own Creation you will end up with death... The question is how to integrate God into science and how can Godfearing men and women work in that field freely and responsibly. Science can be a good thing, but in the present moment and time it is being used by people who really just believe people are a higher animal form.

You do not work in science, and you are seeing what Ben Stein (a political spin doctor and actor) and the media wants you to see. I have no idea why you refuse to believe the experience of someone who has spent the past 10 years working in one of the many field of science, but I can tell you that in my field (immunology) I am not persecuted for my religious beliefs nor am I expected to deny them. You are seeing a very narrow picture of science and I can tell you that the picture you are seeing is not universally representative. Most of us are in science to better understand the physical world around us, and to contribute to the body of knowledge. We do not come into this with an agenda to destroy God and religion (in fact, many of us come into this to better understand what God has created, and as we learn, we marvel at it), we do not come in to this with an agenda to kill. Why can you not understand this, and why do you keep insisting that science must step beyond the bounds of its jurisdiction to rule on metaphysical matters that cannot be proven by science and that are better left to faith?

[The Barbarian]

I find it hilarious how the sheep in this country argue over whether public schools should teach "abstinence vs non-abstinence" or "evolution over creationism" etc. when the whole department of education itself is unconstitutional.

The guys who wrote and ratified the Constitution didn't think so. As far back as the Northwest Ordinances, they passed laws which committed the Federal government to support local education. And I think they knew what they intended.

If we simply followed our laws and had all private schools,

There's nothing whatever in federal law prohibiting the federal government from a role in public school, and there certainly isn't anything in the Constitution prohibiting the states from establishing and governing public schools.

My major issue with the federal government is that they have usurped the governing role for public schools, a power that is denied them in the Constitution.

I like your attitude toward government, but this one is not supported by the Constitution.

[The Barbarian]

The real issue remains. Stein's claim that "science kills people" was a more generalized statement of his lie that scientists ordered his family into the gas chambers.

Depraved and evil as that libel is, he knows that it will play well with his customer base. Scientists in German were generally less antisemitic than most Germans. Hitler assailed the Jews because he knew there was already a prejudice against Jews in Gemany. In his earlier writings, he actually praised Jews and the Jewish sense of community and self-help. The "Final Solution" was largely a cynical means of rallying people to him against a common enemy.

And we have come full circle back to Stein, who knows what Hitler knew about exploiting prejudice and hatred.

[drpmjhess]

Originally Posted by MaryJohnZ

Law kills people only inorder to protect other people (self defense differs from murder).

Not true. People have been falsely accused, unjustly convicted, and wrongfully executed, all by our legal system. There is as much justifiability to my claim that "law" kills people as there is to your fatuous claim that "science" kills people.