Signs of Life Still in the Enlightenment (David Brin rips into Ben Stein)

Contrary Brin ^ | May 5, 2008 | David Brin

[EveningStar]

Time for another scan across news and links that show a society still in motion... reminding us that we can keep the Great Experiment going, whether or not the politicians step in to save us...

Still, let's start with a glimpse of what the other side has in mind for us.

Stefan Jones saw the “comedian” Ben Stein, whose humor-schtick is to act as tediously dull as possible, promoting his sick new “documentary” Expelled...

[Stark_GOP]

Filed under “If you cannot attack the message, attack the messenger.”

[junta]

The late unlamented Gould basically ginned up something like a magic evolution to get around the sticky parts of genetics. Not really that far from Stein’s view more ideology than science either way.

[EveningStar]

Brin is attacking both the message and the messenger. And well he should. My stock in Mr. Stein has dropped considerably.

[Jack Black]

Have you seen the movie?

[Reaganomical]

Uh, no. It was a pointed attack at the message ... and a damn good one. In case you missed it or if you didn't even bother to read the story:

Dig it, I lost as many relatives to those gas chanbers as Stein did, only:

(1) I didn’t turn my back on my people, as he has,

(2) Percapita, it was the scientists of Germany who fought Hitler hardest and then left, rather than serve him. Certainly at a higher ratio than churchmen! Goebbels railed against physics, modern astronomy, genetics and (yes) evolution as “Jewish and decadent sciences.” Especially against evolution.

(3) Hitler was waging war foremost against the Western Enlightenment (as well as Jews and communists). Though he despised Christianity in principle, he was fine with co-opting it and incorporating it in propaganda. There were christian chaplains serving the SS at every hellish camp. But you’d find NO exemplars of the “priests” of the Enlightenment -- questioning scientists, questioning lawyers and writers, questioning citizens -- except inside the wire.

[EveningStar]

No. I have not seen the movie yet. I was not commenting on the movie. I was commenting on remarks that Ben Stein has made in various interviews that I’ve watched.

[Stark_GOP]

Go and get some manners. You are lacking.
Yes I read the entire article.
As the title of this thread states (David Brin rips into Ben Stein). Not Ben Stein's movie, but Ben Stein personally.

[EveningStar]

ping

[stop_fascism]

1. is an ad hominem attack.
2. is dubious at best. Jewish scientists like Einstein ran for it. Others like Heisenberg, Van Braun, and Mengele stayed and worked for the Reich.
3. seems pretty dubious to me. If someone could point to the Nazi’s attack on the Western Enlightenment, I’d be grateful. Certainly people like Speer and Heidegger thought they were the fulfillment of the Enlightenment.

It’s hard to take anyone seriously who starts a sentence with “Dig it”.

[EveningStar]

(David Brin rips into Ben Stein)

That was my comment, hence the parentheses.

Brin was ripping into Stein for comments Stein has made.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Scientific knowledge in Europe flourished during the period known as the Renaissance, long before the French "Enlightenment." The enlightenment had little to do with science and a lot to do with "philosophers," who dreamed up new moral frameworks in a futile attempt to replace traditional Judeo-Christian morality. The result was the socialist anti-Christian French Revolution and later Soviet Communism and its offshoots, Fascism and Nazism.

[doc30]

Scientific knowledge in Europe flourished during the period known as the Renaissance, long before the French "Enlightenment." The enlightenment had little to do with science and a lot to do with "philosophers," who dreamed up new moral frameworks in a futile attempt to replace traditional Judeo-Christian morality. The result was the socialist anti-Christian French Revolution and later Soviet Communism and its offshoots, Fascism and Nazism.

I believe the last paragraph from that blog entry sums up your view on this matter, too. The anti-science crowd and their Ben Stein revisionist history, dominates this site now.

I could go on with about fifty more reasons that Stein and his promoters are personifications of everything that caused Auschwitz. But suffice it to say that we owe him a debt of gratitude. The pretense is over. He has said it openly. Till, now, the fundies have been claiming that they respect science but only want it opened up a bit. Now the real party line has been drawn. It is the fundies against science. Not fighting for openness in classrooms. Not seeking equal time. But hating the very thing that made our Great Experiment possible. Sons and daughter of Ben Franklin, stand up.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Use of the word "fundies" marks the author as a rabid anti-Christian bigot who would like to do to us what his "intellectual" forebears did to Christians in their "enlightened" French and Russian revolutions.

Onward Christian Soldiers, against the deviant and decadent hordes of "scientific socialism."

[doc30]

What would you use to describe this minorty subset of Christians who are anti-science, anti-history and anti-rationality unless they either get to make it up or agree with it? It seems they are the ones that are at odds with reality and who regularly Lie for the Lord. like in their poor propaganda attemps where the movie ‘Expelled’ is a stunning example. The Republican party needs to dump these guys else they get taken down by them.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I would call them Brothers in Christ. I wouldn’t ooze contempt for their freedom of religion and freedom of expression which our Founders died to defend.

[Oztrich Boy]

Scientific knowledge in Europe flourished during the period known as the Renaissance, long before the French "Enlightenment."

There was a "French" Enlightenment. Who knew?

(Not wikipedia = France isn't even mentioned)

The Enlightenment came to France a century late and they stuffed it up. Inexcusable really, since they already had Descartes more than a century earlier.

[Stark_GOP]

What would you use to describe this minorty subset of Christians who are anti-science, anti-history and anti-rationality unless they either get to make it up or agree with it? It seems they are the ones that are at odds with reality and who regularly Lie for the Lord. like in their poor propaganda attemps where the movie ‘Expelled’ is a stunning example. The Republican party needs to dump these guys else they get taken down by them.

---

Usually it’s the evolutionary “scientists” that are the ones whom stifle debate (anti-science).
It is also laughable that a Christian would be anti-history especially first century history.
It seems that you are the one loosing your grip on realty.

[Tailgunner Joe]

The product of the “enlightenment” was the idea of the “noble savage” which idealized primitive man “uncorrupted” by the evil of Western Civilization. This rejection of the doctrine of original sin blamed not man's own corrupted nature for evil but rather scapegoated external factors as the cause of evil, much as the socialists claim that evil and injustice is caused by material inequality. Once the socialists are able to eradicate all religion and nations from the world and reduce man into a primitive and animalistic state, then we will live in a magical utopia free of inequality. Or so it was thought. Thus the “Enlightenment” was a rejection of and revolt against the traditions and foundations of Western Civilization itself.

[EveningStar]

The Republican party needs to dump these guys

I wish that was feasible.