Expelled Opens Big

If you have been keeping up with the media churn over the recently released documentary Expelled you will have noticed that there have been some critical reviews, particularly in the more liberal media outlets. Perhaps these have you wondering about the trustworthiness of either the movie or the review. Before you decide which you should place your confidence in you might wish to read a very helpful review of the reviews. If that one's a little too lengthy you might settle for a shorter chortle at the New York Times' silly assessment of the film.

It should be kept in mind that this is not a movie about creationism, nor is it really primarily about the intelligent design/Darwinism debate. It's really about academic freedom and the suppression of a free exchange of ideas by the Darwinian power structure.

It opened this past weekend and scored the second highest opening box for a political documentary ever. Only Fahrenheit 9/11 did better and that was on a topic of broader interest and had much more favorable media buzz prior to its release.

RLC

Re: False Witness

A student of mine, a former Marine who served in Iraq during the early period of the war, responds to the video of Democratic leaders prior to 2003 pronouncing their conviction that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that he must be dealt with.

His reply is on the Feedback page.

RLC

False Consciousness

George Will avers that modern liberal elitism got its start not so much with FDR but with Adlai Stevenson back in the 1950s. Barack Obama, Will writes, is actually Stevenson's successor:

Obama may be the fulfillment of modern liberalism. Explaining why many working class voters are "bitter," he said they "cling" to guns, religion and "antipathy to people who aren't like them" because of "frustrations." His implication was that their primitivism, superstition and bigotry are balm for resentments they feel because of America's grinding injustice.

By so speaking, Obama does fulfill liberalism's transformation since Franklin Roosevelt. What had been under FDR a celebration of America and the values of its working people has become a doctrine of condescension toward those people and the supposedly coarse and vulgar country that pleases them.

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, "Yes, but I need to win a majority." When another supporter told Stevenson, "You educated the people through your campaign," Stevenson replied, "But a lot of people flunked the course." Michael Barone, in "Our Country: The Shaping of America From Roosevelt to Reagan," wrote: "It is unthinkable that Roosevelt would ever have said those things or that such thoughts ever would have crossed his mind." Barone added: "Stevenson was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture -- the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting."

Will explains how the progressive elite bypasses the people to implement its goals and objectives. The people, progressives believe, are literally too dull to know what's best for them. They have a "false consciousness," that misleads and blinds them to the nature of their true good:

... Because the manipulable masses are easily given a "false consciousness" (another category, like religion as the "opiate" of the suffering masses, that liberalism appropriated from Marxism), four things follow:

First, the consent of the governed, when their behavior is governed by their false consciousnesses, is unimportant. Second, the public requires the supervision of a progressive elite which, somehow emancipated from false consciousness, can engineer true consciousness. Third, because consciousness is a reflection of social conditions, true consciousness is engineered by progressive social reforms. Fourth, because people in the grip of false consciousness cannot be expected to demand or even consent to such reforms, those reforms usually must be imposed, for example, by judicial fiats.

Read the rest of Will's essay to see how this relates to Senator Obama and his analysis of the "bitter" American.

HT: Jason

RLC

False Witness

If you've ever wondered why President Bush thought Saddam Hussein was a terror threat to the U.S. and was working on weapons of mass destruction, this video very clearly explains it. He was listening to the Democrats.

Watch this and you'll have to wonder whether, if Bush lied us into the war, all these Democrats were lying as well. You'll also have to wonder how these same people can possibly keep a straight face while accusing Bush of going into Iraq under false pretenses.

RLC

Darwin's Dangerous Consequences

The movie Expelled being released this weekend has the Darwinists in a swivet because it draws a link between Darwinian evolution and Nazism. This, the modern day Darwinists protest, is simply beyond the pale. Richard Weikert, author of From Darwin to Hitler, rejoins that indeed the connection is historically demonstrable. He offers for our consideration six key elements of Darwin's thought that were enthusiastically embraced by the Nazis:

1. Darwin argued that humans were not qualitatively different from animals. The leading Darwinist in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, attacked the "anthropocentric" view that humans are unique and special.

2. Darwin denied that humans had an immaterial soul. He and other Darwinists believed that all aspects of the human psyche, including reason, morality, aesthetics, and even religion, originated through completely natural processes.

3. Darwin and other Darwinists recognized that if morality was the product of mindless evolution, then there is no objective, fixed morality and thus no objective human rights. Darwin stated in his Autobiography that one "can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones."

4. Since evolution requires variation, Darwin and other early Darwinists believed in human inequality. Haeckel emphasized inequality to such an extent that he even classified human races as twelve distinct species and claimed that the lowest humans were closer to primates than to the highest humans.

5. Darwin and most Darwinists believe that humans are locked in an ineluctable struggle for existence. Darwin claimed in The Descent of Man that because of this struggle, "[a]t some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."

6. Darwinism overturned the Judeo-Christian view of death as an enemy, construing it instead as a beneficial engine of progress. Darwin remarked in The Origin of Species, "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

These six ideas were promoted by many prominent Darwinian biologists and Darwin-inspired social thinkers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All six were enthusiastically embraced by Hitler and many other leading Nazis. Hitler thought that killing "inferior" humans would bring about evolutionary progress. Most historians who specialize in the Nazi era recognize the Darwinian underpinnings of many aspects of Hitler's ideology. . . .

Weikert's book, despite being assiduously ignored by Darwinists, is a thoroughly documented elaboration of the connection between Darwin's ideas and the attitudes toward racial purity and eugenics that were widespread among German intellectuals in the early twentieth century and which were carried to their logical conclusion by the Nazis in the 1930s and early 1940s. His book should be read by anyone who wishes to know more about the Darwinism/Nazism nexus. Ideas really do have consequences.

RLC

University Chipmunks

Here's an irony. College students at George Washington University, who would presumably not hesitate to sign a declaration demanding an end to our engagement in Iraq, nevertheless refuse to sign a declaration against genocide. Even the Young Republican organization on campus came down with a sudden case of writer's cramp when asked to append their signatures to the declaration:

When George Washington University senior Sergio Gor tried to get campus student groups to sign a Declaration Against Genocide last week, he thought it would be a no-brainer. Who, after all, wouldn't support a statement endorsing such uncontroversial tenets as the "right of all people to live in freedom and dignity," the equal dignity of men and women, and the freedom of conscience?

All too many, as it turned out. Having approached all the largest student groups at the school to support the declaration, Gor, the president of the George Washington chapter of the Young America's Foundation, was refused time and again. For most students, the message of the declaration, which is a central component of the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, was simply too "controversial to support."

Read the rest of the article here.

I once watched a hawk swoop down and seize a chipmunk. The chipmunk, once secured in the hawk's talons, didn't even twitch. There was no struggle, no fight, just resignation to its fate.

Apparently there are a lot of chipmunks at George Washington. The University's namesake must be spinning in his grave down the road at Mt. Vernon.

RLC

Funny Man

Bill Maher continues his quest to become the world's most odious man with his recent attack on Pope Benedict. Having already expressed his wish for the death of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, Maher now calls the Pope a Nazi, the leader of a cult of pedophiles, and his supine audience exults in the hilarity of it all.

Maher's "humor" is as craven as it is sick since he knows he'll get nothing but kudos from all the beautiful people, and he'll anger only those yokels in the Catholic Church. He's been hammering Catholicism in particular, and American religion in general, for years but has not yet found the time to do likewise to Islam. I'm sure, though, that ridicule of Islam is in the pipeline. His writers are no doubt working even now on a few wisecracks about Mohammed and his nine year-old wife.

We'll let you know when Maher delivers the lines. His audience will certainly be rolling in the aisles, or at least part of them will.

RLC

Rumors of War

NewsMax reports that signs continue to point to an imminent war with Iran:

Contrary to some claims that the Bush administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran's nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America's Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table - but likely.

"Israel is preparing for heavy casualties," the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.

"Look at Dick Cheney's recent trip through the Middle East as preparation for the U.S. attack," the source said.

Cheney's hastily arranged 9-day visit to the region, which began on March 16, included stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories.

Read the rest of the article. It may be that war is not on the near horizon, but much of the Middle East appears to be acting as if it were.

RLC

Negligible Negatives

My friend Byron is a bookseller and probably knows as much or more about the Christian book market as anyone in the country. He was therefore especially interested in the post (Easy Way Out) on the study by David Kinnaman titled Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity.

He shares his thoughts on our Feedback page. Along the way he gently chides me for not being more sympathetic to the opinions expressed by the respondents in Kinnaman's study. He makes several worthy points, but in my defense I have to say that I'm just a wee bit weary of hearing the complaints that Kinnaman's research turned up. There is so much good taking place in most American churches and most of the people in those churches are such good and decent people that I suspect that anyone who offers up the complaints that Kinnaman's respondents did simply hasn't taken the trouble to look into the matter very deeply or is looking to rationalize their rejection of the church.

Sure, there are problems and embarrassments (I'm doubtless one of them), but compared to the good that is being done in our communities by our churches it seems almost churlish for outsiders to dwell on them. Here's a short list off the top of my head of good organizations and good things being done in the city and county where I live that probably wouldn't exist or get done were it not for Christians: Food Banks, soup kitchens, homeless and abuse victim shelters, food and clothing drives, disaster relief such as missions to rebuild Katrina-ravaged areas, crisis pregnancy counselling, homes for the elderly, medical facilities, private schools staffed by volunteers, immigrant resettlement programs, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, prison ministry, child care programs, and on it goes. I'm sure you can think of even more.

Thus, when I hear people disparage Christianity because Christians are "too judgmental" or "too political" or "too hypocritical," I just have to think that these people simply don't know what they're talking about. They remind me of the man who was asked after visiting Yosemite National Park for his impressions, and his only comment was that the road going in had potholes in it.

Byron tells me I sound grumpy, but the fact is that the people who sound grumpy are the people who overlook the enormous good the church is doing to focus on the relatively negligible negatives.

RLC

The First Animal

Scientists used to think that the first animal on earth was something very simple like a sponge, but that assessment has recently been revised. The new thinking is that the oldest animals were comb jellies. This is quite significant since unlike sponges, comb jellies have connective tissues and a nervous system, and are more complex. This means that the earliest animals in the evolutionary tree were already highly developed creatures. This is not what one would expect given the evolutionary view of things, and it's yet another example of nature's propensity for sticking its thumb in the eye of Darwinists' expectations.

The Darwinists are not without explanations for this anomaly, of course, because evolution is a rubbery theory that can be flexed to cover every conceivable observation. Contrary to what one might think, though, this flexibility is not an asset because a theory which can explain everything really explains nothing. It is not falsifiable and is, therefore, not a scientific hypothesis.

Intelligent design is disallowed in public schools on the grounds that it's not falsifiable, but Darwinism, which also seems impervious to empirical falsification, is considered mainstream science. It's very puzzling, to say the least.

At any rate, in honor of the comb jellies' newly-bestowed exalted status we feature this video:

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC

Easy Way Out

In Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, has done research among non-Christians and has, according to Christianity Today magazine, "learned that their perception of Christians is that they are too often identified by what they stand against, rather than the hope which they stand for. According to the research, believers are seen as too judgmental, too political, and often hypocritical."

Huh. Let's unpack this. First, it's pretty hard to stand for something like, say, traditional marriage, without being against those innovations like gay marriage which threaten it. It's hard to be for peaceful resolution of conflict without being opposed to violence. So I don't know how Christians can avoid giving the perception that they're against things rather than for things when to be one means you have to be the other also.

Kinnaman finds that believers are seen as being too judgmental, but what does that mean, and what should we do about it? Does it mean that Christians are prone to making moral judgments? If so, why is that bad? Should Christians join the rest of society and abandon the idea that some things are right and others wrong? Of course, if there is no right or wrong, then making moral judgments can't be wrong and one wonders then why the critics even bring it up.

He also learns that believers are too political. Evidently, non-Christians must think it is somehow unChristian to have an opinion on political matters and to vote. Are Christians supposed to suspend their citizenship as long as they remain Christians? Perhaps the non-Christian is made uncomfortable by the fact that Christians sometimes vote as a block, but why is this offensive? Are blacks, gays, women, Democrats and Republicans, Jews, men, the wealthy, the poor, the middle class, union members, teachers, lawyers, and others who frequently vote their common interests also too political?

Kinnaman reports, finally, that Christians are perceived as being hypocritical. No surprise there. Ask 100 people why they resist the gospel, and 99 of them will say that Christians are hypocritical. I don't know how many of them could actually name something they witnessed someone doing that was hypocritical, but it's an article of faith among the unchurched that churches are chock full of people who do hypocritical stuff.

This seems, like the others, to be an odd complaint. If the critic means merely that churches are full of sinners then who would disagree, since that's what churches are for. If he means that Christians fall short of what they claim to be their moral ideal then most of them are surely guilty as charged. But why is this a complaint properly lodged against the church? It's like criticizing a rescue mission because there are too many wretches there.

I wonder how many of those interviewed by Kennaman are really just trying to rationalize the fact that the reason they are put off by Christianity has nothing really to do with the reasons they gave him and everything to do with the fact that they just don't want to acknowledge that Christianity might be true. The reasons they offered are designed, perhaps, to cover themselves with a patina of moral righteousness that enables them to indulge their wish not to submit to the authority of the Gospel without having to do any serious thinking about whether or not their refusal is really wise or intellectually warranted. They give those who invoke them an easy way out.

RLC

Meanwhile, Back in Baghdad

Fighting continues in Baghdad as Maliki's Iraqi army (IA) battles Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi army for control of the precinct of Iraq's capital known as Sadr City. Earlier media reports that the Mahdi army had battled the government forces to a standstill seem to have been premature since the IA seems to have the initiative everywhere it chooses to press the battle. Bill Roggio has details as does Hot Air.

Reports indicate that American forces are supporting the IA with M1A2 Abrams tanks and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles which are capable of firing hellfire missiles.

This video shows two Predator attacks. The first is on some mortar or rocket batteries from which explosives were launched that killed civilians in Baghdad. The second is against a force of about ten "criminals" (as the Iraqi government is now calling Mahdi militiamen). It's not pretty, and you shouldn't watch it if you'd rather not think about what's happening on the streets of Baghdad.

HT: The Long War Journal.

RLC

Deconstructing the Bamboozler

Matt passes along this short video for our consideration. Senator Obama gets docked points for lack of originality:

I especially like Obama as Neo, the savior of the world.

RLC

Digging Himself a Hole

The Politico lists twelve reasons why Sen. Obama's assertion that bitter Pennsylvanians are clinging to guns, religion, and bigotry to compensate for their dismal economic circumstances is going to be a considerable problem for him going into the last round of primaries. Some of the twelve are pretty insightful.

Hillary, of course, is trying to separate herself from what she alleges to be Obama's elitist views on gun control and faith, portraying herself as something of a pious Annie Oakley, according to the New York Times blog.

As with so many things Mrs. Clinton claims about herself, however, this portrayal is misleading. In 1999, for instance, she supported a number of gun control measures that would have raised the age limit for possessing a handgun to 21 from 18 while still allowing exemptions for hunting, employment and ranching; extended background checks to those who buy guns at gun shows, provided that the records are eventually expunged; banned juveniles who are convicted of violent felonies from ever owning a gun; make parents subject to prosecution if they recklessly or negligently allow a gun to fall into the hands of children who use it to commit a crime, and expanded the government's gun tracing program, underway in 35 cities, to 75 cities.

As it happens, each of these strikes me as a sensible proposal, but none were popular with many second amendment supporters, including the National Rifle Association. In fact, there's probably no significant difference between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama on guns or religion. The question is whether either is willing to say exactly what she/he believes about gun control and second amendment rights clearly and unambiguously in the states whose primaries will be held over the next forty five days. My guess is that neither will.

RLC

Giving the Rest a Bad Name

Justin sends along this story of how things are sometimes portrayed by the media. Fortunately, there are many fine people in journalism who hold themselves to high professional standards and do great work. Unfortunately, this story may sound a little too familiar to some who have dealt with the minority who don't:

A man is walking by the zoo when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to devour her right in front the little girl's screaming parents.

The man runs to the cage, hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back, letting go of the girl, and the man brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him profusely.

A reporter has seen the whole episode and, addressing the man, says: "Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've ever witnessed a man do in my whole life."

"It was nothing," said the man. "Really, the lion was behind bars, and I knew God would protect me just as He did Daniel in the lions' den long ago. I just saw this little kid in danger, and did what I felt was right."

"I noticed a Bible in your pocket." said the journalist.

"Yes, I was on my way to a Bible study" the man replies.

"Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist with the New York Times, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this on the front page."

The following morning the man buys the Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads on the front page.....

"Right Wing Christian Fundamentalist Assaults African Immigrant and Steals His Lunch."

Notwithstanding what I wrote in the first paragraph about how most people in any profession have high standards, for some reason this story reminds me of the line that 99% of politicians give the rest a bad name.

RLC

Two Myths About ID

In one short little essay Michael Egnor manages the noteworthy feat of exploding two Darwinist myths about intelligent design. The first myth is that design can be produced by natural forces like mutation and natural selection. Design, as Egnor argues, requires intelligent direction ab defino.

The second myth is that intelligent design is not falsifiable. Understand that a theory that is falsifiable is not necessarily false. Rather to be falsifiable means that we can imagine some observation that, were we to make it, would show the theory to be false. It may be that that observation never occurs because the theory is in fact true. For example, a theory that holds there to be only nine planets in the solar system may be true, but we can imagine an observation that would falsify it, namely the observation of a tenth planet. On the other hand, try to imagine an observation that would falsify the belief that ghosts exist.

Since falsification (or testability) is a standard criterion for what constitutes good science, the critic of intelligent design seeks to have ID ruled out of bounds because, he alleges, there is no imaginable observation or state of affairs that would show that biological structures were not designed by an intelligent designer, and therefore the theory cannot be falsified. This, however, is a peculiar criticism for the simple reason that ID is the denial of Darwinism and therefore Darwinism, if it were true as its votaries believe it to be, would itself constitute the falsification of ID.

As we have argued elsewhere on Viewpoint, Darwinism states that natural mechanisms alone are sufficient to account for all that we see in the biological realm. intelligent design denies this claim and states that natural mechanisms by themselves are not sufficient to explain at least some biological phenomena. The two claims are mirror images of each other. They have the same logical character. If Darwinism is true, as the Darwinian believes it is, then ID must be false, but if ID is not falsifiable then neither is Darwinism. Thus ID and Darwinism either both qualify as science or they both fail.

Egnor concludes his essay by noting that, "The truth is that Darwinists aren't concerned that intelligent design isn't falsifiable. They're concerned that it isn't false."

Read the whole thing at the link.

RLC

Culturally Maladroit

"It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Barack Obama talking about Pennsylvanians embittered by job losses.

I'm not sure what to make of this, but it sounds like he might be suggesting that Pennsylvanians who support the second amendment, who are personally devout, who oppose open borders and are uneasy about the Mexification of the American west and southwest and the economic burden illegal immigration is placing on people are bitter folks looking for both crutches and scapegoats.

Maybe he meant something different, I don't know, but what it sounded like he said is not going to endear him to voters in Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, or West Virginia where primaries are looming. It seems lately that whenever Sen. Obama opens his mouth he risks alienating more people who were formerly sympathetic to his candidacy. After his controversial remarks about what white people really believe about blacks this comment about economically stressed whites being a bunch of stereotypical rednecks has given Mrs. Clinton a splendid opportunity to start pounding away with questions about what Obama's deepest beliefs about white people really are.

I'll be a bit surprised if she hasn't started to exploit this opening even before I get this posted.

RLC

Taxpayer Subsidized Islam

Minnesota's KSTP reports that a Minnesota charter school funded by tax dollars has been accused by a substitute teacher of violating the law by teaching Islam:

[S]ubstitute teacher Amanda Getz taught at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA last month and told the Star Tribune about things she observed that day that shocked her.

"I've been in a lot of schools and I've never been in a school where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off," Getz said.

"It is most likely that this substitute teacher was sadly mistaken," said TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman.

He said the school follows state and federal guidelines when it comes to religion.

"We're required under the federal guidelines to allow students to pray when they wish to do so. And as Muslim students, they're allowed to pray around 1:30 p.m., so we allow them to do that," Zaman explained.

TIZA requires all students to learn Arabic as a second language to English.

State law requires the school to fly an American flag during school hours, however no flag flies outside of TIZA Academy.

Zaman told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he didn't know how to work the flagpole.

One wonders how much the students are learning if the director of the school can't even be taught to work a flagpole.

The Star tribune has a more complete follow-up article here.

HT: Jason

RLC

Obama's <i>Mein Kampf</i>?

Ann Coulter has read Barack Obama's autobiography and wonders if anyone else has, and, if so, how it is that Obama is still a potential president of the United States.

Well, I haven't read his book, so I can't tell whether her assessment of it is fair or not, but if it is, then Senator Obama doesn't sound like the right guy to talk about "transcending race."

If anyone who has read the book has some insight into Obama's thinking please let us know your thoughts. If anyone who reads this post is planning on voting for Obama please do us all a favor and read the book first.

Meanwhile, check out Coulter's column. Compared to some of what she writes this one is relatively low on snark.

RLC

Developments in Cancer Research

In light of the recent news about cell-phones causing brain cancer this report is especially relevant: Scientists have made a remarkable discovery in the treatment of cancers, specifically, but not solely, brain cancer.

It had been thought that all the cells in a tumor were identical, but it has been discovered that the tumor is actually fed by stem cells that reside in the tumor near blood vessels from which they derive their nourishment. Drugs that attack the blood vessels cause the stem cells to die off which, it is thought, cause the tumor to whither.

There's a story and video here.

RLC