I read as far as I could...I had to give up...
Posted on 03/24/2008 5:19:31 PM PDT by Nicholas Conradin
The blogs are ringing with ridicule. Mark Mathis, duplicitous producer of the much hyped film Expelled, shot himself in the foot so spectacularly that the phrase might have been invented for him. Goals don't come more own than this. How is it possible that a man who makes his living from partisan propaganda could hand so stunning a propaganda coup to his opponents? Hand it to them on a plate, so ignominiously and so UNNECESSARILY.
In writing this for RichardDawkins.net, I have assumed that our readers will already be familiar with the facts of the case, from Pharyngula and the more than 40 other blogs that have picked up the story and are listed at For the same reason, I shall not discuss the main message of the film -- that American creationist scientists are being victimized for their views -- except to say that it was very much NOT its main message when the film was called Crossroads, and when I, together with PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott and others, were conned into taking part.
Now, to the Good Friday Fiasco itself, Mathis' extraordinary and costly lapse of judgment. Just think about it. His entire film is devoted to the notion that American scientists are being hounded and expelled from their jobs because of opinions that they hold....
(Excerpt) Read more at richarddawkins.net ...
Why on earth would Richard Dawkins refer to himself in such a manner? I realize he is an ignorant pathetic excuse for a man, but has he jumped off into the depths of insanity as well?
ML/NJ
“Goals don’t come more own that this.”
Que?
“English, m*****f*****! Do you speak it?”
I only scanned the article but I found this nugget interesting:
“even in the highly unlikely event that some such ‘Directed Panspermia’ was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent ‘crane’ (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity.”
He’s not only saying that life conclusively evolved on earth, he is saying that there is NO WAY a creator could ever create a designed world.
How much more ridiculous could he get? Evolution has become an beginning, middle, and end for this man. To him there is nothing else in the universe except evolution.
And that’s only one of many absurd statements he made in the column. Someone call the wagon; he has gone ‘round the bend.
BTW, isn’t Ben Stein Jewish? Why is the article titled ‘Lying for Jesus’?
I agree. The article was almost unreadable it was so horribly written.
I suppose we need to set this column aside for a few thousand years and maybe it will evolve into a more coherent and readable form.
Mr. Dawkins is a permanently enraged pitiful person.
Kind of like your typical muzzie. Except, poor Mr. Dawkins believes this life is all there is. No reason for him to blow himself to meaningless oblivion as the muzzies do.
He’ll just have to let us ignorant superstitious peasants who believe and hope in G-d to just go on living.
Nope, it’ll take millions of years. If that doesn’t work, maybe a few million more.
It’s a creation thread but so poorly written who can tell—boring.
Dawkins is an evil and deranged mind.
A soccer analogy? Ignore the rest.
I just read an excellent book debunking Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet’s and others recent books bashing Christianity and promoting Athiesm. The book is by David Marshall and titled “The Truth Behind the New Athiesm.” Marshall slowly and carefully demolishes Dawkins et al arguments point by point.
“Nope, it’ll take millions of years.”
Silly me. What was I thinking?
Que?
“English, m*****f*****! Do you speak it?”
An "own goal" in soccer is when you put the ball in your own net, scoring a point for the other team. He's basically saying Mathis shot himself in the foot in a very public fashion. (He wrote "more own than this," by the way.) Like the rest of the article, it's an elegant and subtle takedown of the lying hypocrites behind this movie.
“Like the rest of the article, it’s an elegant and subtle takedown of the lying hypocrites behind this movie.”
Did you read the rest of it?
It’s so horribly written, with other amazingly creative uses of grammar that it’s hard to imagine anyone thinking it is “elegant”.
And where is the ‘lying’ to which you refer? Please cite those instances where someone knowingly supports a falsehood.
(BTW, a lie is not when someone disagrees with you or disagrees with the conclusions you present on data or evidence. For an example of lying, see Hillary Clinton’s story of landing in Bosnia amid a hail of gunfire.)
What have these people done that makes them hypocrites? Please cite sources.
Oops, I omitted a comma:”It’s so horribly written, with other amazingly creative uses of grammar, that it’s hard to imagine anyone thinking it is “elegant”.”
Yes, I read it all. Phrases like the one in question, his description of Ben Stein’s voice as “an irritating, nasal drawl, innocent of charm and of consonants,” and his statement that “I still hadn’t rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man”—that’s good writing, in a characteristically understated British style.
The lying was in interviewing scientists under false pretenses, inviting them to indulge in speculation, and then presenting the speculation as though it were what they really believe.
The hypocrisy lies in making a film that supposedly exposes the suppression of free speech, and then combing the list of attendees in order to exclude anyone who might express disagreement with the film.
I did follow the link and kept plowing on - and on - and on...hoping to trip over the point ...but after dissing Ben Stein over and over - and still not having said anything I could make sense of, I gave up.
The thought flicked across my mind that in his long diatribe about how boring and amateurish the film was - and I still wasn't sure what the film was about - I thought, "Well, boring and amateurish is something he knows about. He's got it mastered."
(Isn't the Internet great? People who could never get a word in print can prattle on and think themselves a writer.)
I read as far as I could...I had to give up...
The British appear to have an endless supply of arcane, insider words and phrases that have no meaning unless you are “in the know” — consider calling Americans “sepps” because of a play on rhyming “yanks” with “tanks” as in “septic tanks”. Cute, in a childish way, if you know the derivation; but incomprehensible otherwise.
I have no idea how one might “rumble” Ben Stein, and frankly, don't care to learn. This writing may be considered clever by people who agree with the author and know his idioms. The term “preaching to the choir” comes to mind, but that might make me guilty of doing what I am accusing the author of: using language that is out of the experience of the reader.
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