The cosmos video one may actually help by way of teaching about how huge the universe is- enlarging one's view of God and His creation (Giglio even says that). It destroys petty images of God over a simple creation. There is a silly statement- though- of the "sign of God" in the cosmos (the "star-shaped" galaxy). He sees crosses in the stars as well as in micro-biology (laminin). Yes- I think these are online at YouTube.com; just search for his name at YouTube (I gave some links earlier for laminin). Like I said- coming to a church near you- I think these are viral ... thanks for the confirmation.
...Bernie
________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Tandy
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 5:26 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [asa] Videos
Well, it's happened. Several people at church have talked about showing a video on science sometime, so I asked to take a look at it first. Turns out there are two videos by Louie Giglio; one on the cosmos, and the other going from space down into the cell, showing the grandeur of God (I presume it will talk about Laminin). Haven't watched them yet, but I'll let you know.
In the meantime, last December I finally forced myself to watch (online on Netflix), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
Having read plenty about it beforehand, watching Expelled confirmed my suspicion: the subtitle is an appropriate Freudian slip. "No intelligence allowed" is a pretty good description of the movie, not the scientific community that it pretends to expose. My second thought was, if this is the best that the Intelligent Design community can come up with, they'd better just pack it up and go home. Its substantial collection of logical fallacies and anti-scientific rhetoric is an insult to the intelligence of its audience, not to mention mocking and accusing scientists and the scientific community.
I've already talked to a friend who thought it was the greatest, and mentioned the movie's false accusation against scientists by its reference to Hitler, concentration camps, and other threatening and murderous images. This constant ad hominem argument is not only wearisome, it is slanderous. I also mentioned that though Hitler used Darwinian ideas in his writings to justify killing the Jews, he also used Christianity in the same way. Does Hitler's use of Christianity prove that Christianity is dangerous and destructive? Or does it prove that Hitler was a madman who could use any rhetorical argument to his advantage, no matter how illogical?
It mocks the scientists by taking their arguments out of context and presenting them in a manner calculated to make them look stupid. One of the best illustrations of this is the comment (I think from Daniel Dennett) that life might have begun "on the backs of crystals", then the movie switches to a fortune teller with a crystal ball. If someone doesn't know the difference between a crystal structure and a crystal ball, he should not pretend he's doing any favors to science or the truth. This doesn't mean that life did begin spontaneously on crystals or anywhere else; it does mean that Stein has used such goofy, anti-scientific rhetoric, that it defies belief.
On the other hand, though there are many practicing scientists who also believe in God, I'm sure that there is a fair amount of bias in the scientific community against "Intelligent Design" and religion in general. I don't want to put the blame for this solely on Christians, but with this kind of unintelligent tripe going around, it's sometimes seems difficult to blame the scientific community for wanting to exclude anything that looks like "religion".
Jon Tandy
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Received on Mon Jan 19 12:43:48 2009
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