Creationism
Public Expels Stein’s EXPELLED Critics
Nine percent of film critics have given positive reviews to Ben Steins new movie EXPELLED, No intelligence necessary that questions the notion of random life versus intelligent design. In contrast, Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” is adored by 93 percent of the critics notwithstanding its nonscientific premise. The New York Times uses some choice words to describe the movie, stating that it is a “conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.” Time magazine fumes that “the man made famous by Ferris Bueller . . . quickly wades into waters far too deep for him.”
The public apparently isn’t listening. “Expelled” had a huge opening weekend for a documentary with a radioactive topic. It placed ninth with a box-office take of $3.1 million. By comparison, Morgan Spurlock, director of “Super Size Me,” debuted his “Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?” documentary on the same weekend. Spurlock’s film took in an embarrassing $143,300.
America’s Religious Decline
Religion in decline in America says a massive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life - considered the most comprehensive report on religious identification of Americans in recent years interviewing more than 35,000 people across the United States - found 28 percent of adults say they have left their childhood faith for another religion or none at all. Counting people who shifted denominations, the change rises to 44 percent. According to the study the U. S. will soon lose its status as a majority-Protestant country standing now at just 51% of the churched. That drop from about 2/3rd who said they were Protestant in 1960 has seen the number of those who called themselves religiously unaffiliated in the 1980s double to 16% now.In California 21% - more than one in five – call themselves unaffiliated and in Oregon that’s 27%. Religious scholars say the big reason is “rootless” people who have moved into the west abandoning not only their home and family and leaving their religion behind. Overall 28% of adults say they have left their childhood faith for another religion or none at all. The Catholic Church has faired the worst among all denominations falling to 25% from nearly one-third (33%), and it would be worse without a big influx of immigrations from catholic countries. Hindus have the highest retention of members at 84 percent. Jehovah’s Witness lose 2/3rds of those raise in the sect by adulthood. Overall mainline Protestant churches have fewer and older members, while nondenominational Christian churches are growing. Jews, on average, are also older than other groups and are literally dying out.Mormons and Muslims have the largest families. Black Americans are most likely to claim religious affiliation, nearly half of Hindus and one-third of Jews have postgraduate education. U.S. Buddhist adherents are made up mostly of native-born converts.
England’s Oxford University recently received a $3.7 million grant to find out whether belief in a deity is a matter of nature or nurture. Some believe the growth of humanism and secularism is contributing to the decline in religious beliefs leading to the rise in atheism and agnosticism or visa-versa. Others say a consequence is the vast increase in rudderless people saying they are depressed, using anti-depressants, addiction to prescription drugs and use illicit drugs.
Dobson Endorses Huckabee
ALERT: Rev. James Dobson, head of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, is endorsing Mike Huckabee for President – himself a former Baptist minister – in part because McCain uses profanity.
Former sailor and POW McCain’s has a deserved reputation of using salty language and infamously telling fellow senators and others to perform anatomically impossible acts.
Dobson is if nothing else sanctimonious. For Dobson to be critical of McCain for this — after he famously and heroically served his country and suffered intolerable torture for years — while Dobson himself cowered as a draft-dodger and his own kids are on his payroll and who did not serve either is at best hypocrisy. By the way McCain’s son is serving in the Marines in Iraq.
America has had Eisenhower and Reagan Republicans, and Compassionate Conservatives – it is time for COMMON SENSE CONSERVATIVES
Christian Bashing
“Christian bashing, the last acceptable form of bigotry in America, is alive and well and growing more intense and hysterical by the day” contends CHRISTIAN BASHING a book by Dr. Gary L. Cass, President of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. Cass says, “The time for letting Christian bashing go unchallenged has come to an end!” Cass, with degrees from Westminster Theological School, is militant contending in a related newsletter article, “it has become routine for the media and elites to openly mock and trivialize Christians because they choose to express their faith.” Read this Review Submitted to Amazon.com about Lee Strobel’s book pictured to the left.
“Expelled” The Movie
In what some describe as “one of the most important movies to come out in 100 years” because it discusses “Where did we come from? How did we get here?”
Observer and commentator Ben Stein contributes his style to focus on answers and describe academic persecution of those who dare think about and speak about creationism and intelligent design. He warns those with a stake in the ivory tower not to watch this movie lest they be discovered and attacked by secularist who would ruin their careers. It opens in February. See his web site and complete movie preview including additional clips Here.
See a provocative Super Clip Click Here.
To Join The Expelled, Click Here.
