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Roger Ebert answers your questions on creation

 
 
Reply Mon 22 Sep, 2008 11:45 pm
Creationism: Your questions answered

Quote:
Questions and answers on Creationism, which should be discussed in schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution


I can't stop wondering if this is all some sort of prank on his part. These are so very ridiculous and seem to contradict his previous statements on creation.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 3 • Views: 2,873 • Replies: 15
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Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Mon 22 Sep, 2008 11:47 pm
@Robert Gentel,
My favorite:

Quote:
Q. Since the earth was completely covered, even to the highest mountains, where did the waters go?

A. This is explained in Psalm 104, verses 6 and 7: "Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away."


Here's a funny translation I read in a comment on it:

Q. Where did the waters go?
A. Away.
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dyslexia
 
  1  
Reply Mon 22 Sep, 2008 11:52 pm
that roger ebert is a hoot.
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dadpad
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 12:25 am
have to agree with the moose bit though!

Do moose eat chups........or jist plinkton bro?
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 05:30 am
@Robert Gentel,
This is a real goof because EBert has, in the past, been a breath of fresh air in his support of science in schools. The "footprint" is a septeria which is a kind of nodule that reflects clay layers that have been deformed by pressure from successive layers .
He should have used the Paluxy feet, which were dicosaur tracks that , at least a few, look like human footy prints(they do look even more realistic when some Creationist goober carves in toes and foot arches)
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farmerman
 
  2  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 05:37 am
@Robert Gentel,
Heres a sample of Eberts writing on the subject from another movie ranthttp://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050328/COMMENTARY/503280301


PS how does one insert a url with a title rather trhan the whole url? I dont seem to have a tool like on the previous incarnation of A2K
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 05:38 am
I have met Roger Ebert once or twice. I can't really say that I know him. He does have a bold sense of humor, though.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 07:33 am
Roger must be jealous of all the good press Ben Stein received from his support of ID.

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ossobuco
 
  2  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 10:49 am
@farmerman,
I need to learn that too, farmer. Have you seen the a2k blog (see top right of the page)? There's an example of how to do that with one of the most recent blog entries. (The blog is updated with lots of useful a2k how-to info.)
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 11:17 am
@ossobuco,
blog? There was a cartoon of a gopher that doesnt seem to be there any more. Maybe a search.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Sep, 2008 11:19 am
@ossobuco,
Oops, it's not at the upper right today, or I'm just missing it. But Robert did say that when there was nothing new, it would just be accessed from the very bottom of the page (bottom blue line). I gather that when there is something new, the hamster and the blog link will go back up to top right as well as at the bottom of the page.
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wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Thu 25 Sep, 2008 08:50 am
Quote:
Roger Ebert: Man of Irony
(by Michael Miner, Chicago Reader, September 24, 2008)

Roger Ebert has just made himself the patron saint of every writer -- God knows I'm one -- who ever petulantly protested that readers didn't realize he was kidding.

Of course, it's not only wordsmiths too droll by half for the hoi polloi who defend themselves this way. So do -- and in vastly greater numbers -- the sly bullies of the world. And also the teeming hordes whose wit eludes their companions because they lack, through no fault of their own, an actual sense of humor.

What Ebert did was post on his Web site a few days ago a Q&A, "Creationism: Your Questions Answered." Consternation then reigned on the Internet, and on Tuesday Ebert came clean, explaining he'd posted the Q&A in order "to discuss the gradual decay of our sense of irony and instinct for satire, and our growing credulity."

Irony interests me. You might recall that 9-11 was supposed to blow irony out of the water. We heard this from commentators who believed irony was no more than an indulgence of the self-indulgent, a patois of flip egoists that could never survive such a ruthless eruption of reality. Yet irony survived nicely. After all, it comes down to us from World War I, a cataclysm infinitely more traumatic than 9-11 that for millions made the conventional expression of conventional sentiments impossible. If it remains occasionally necessary for ironists to say "I love you" or "I am a patriot" -- and it is, for ironists do and ironists are -- they know how to say it by not saying it. Irony, in short, is more than a style; it's an intricate language that in times of turmoil and mendacity remains more necessary than ever.

Ebert thinks it's in decay. Perhaps. And he thinks the response to his Q&A -- "Many of the comments I've seen believe I have converted to Creationism. Others conclude I have lost my mind because of age and illness" -- demonstrates that decay.

I wonder. "To sense the irony, you have to sense the invisible quotation marks," he writes. True enough. "Were there invisible quotation marks about my Creationism article? Of course there were. How could you be expected to see them? In a sense, I didn't want you to. I wrote it straight. The quotation marks would have been supplied by the instincts of the ironic reader."

Then Ebert compares his exercise to "A Modest Proposal," and recalls that in his English class back in high school "we all got it." Why? "First, consider the source," Ebert explains. "Jonathan Swift was not a noted cannibal."

In short, "A Modest Proposal" could be identified as satire because Swift wrote it; similarly "Creationism: Your Questions Answered" could be identified as satire because Ebert wrote it. But now I'm thinking of the guy who stands squinting at an oil in the Art Institute, and when his wife asks if he likes it replies, "I don't know. Who's the painter?"

Swift proposed that the Irish sate their empty bellies by eating babies. I'm guessing the outlandishness of this idea made it easy for Ebert's old English class to conclude Swift was making fun of something even if they weren't sure exactly what. Nobody really believed the Irish should eat their babies! they guessed -- and they were right. But Ebert allows that the ideas presented in his Q&A "accurately reflected Creationist beliefs." It's malarkey that apparently becomes irony because Ebert publishes it under his name. It's like found art -- a hunk of whatever relocated in a gallery.

Ebert is worried about credulity (also about ignorance). For instance -- the example's his -- a McCain ad accuses Obama of championing "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners and people buy it. OK, but what does credulity have to do with irony? That sex ed ad isn't ironic -- it's dishonest. Ebert could be flirting here with an interesting and possibly valid idea -- that proficiency in the language of irony is necessary if a modern American is to withstand the lies, distortions, and vulgar appeals that accost us daily. The danger is that masters of this language might therefore think better of themselves, and less of everyone else -- like the scholars of old who believed they thought finer thoughts because they thought them in Latin.
0 Replies
 
Robert Gentel
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Dec, 2008 03:34 pm
And here's a whole different side of Ebert...

Win Ben Stein's mind

Quote:
I've been accused of refusing to review Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled," a defense of Creationism, because of my belief in the theory of evolution. Here is my response.
0 Replies
 
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Dec, 2008 03:44 pm
This is the film critic Ebert?
0 Replies
 
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Dec, 2008 03:47 pm
@Robert Gentel,
Robert Gentel wrote:

Creationism: Your questions answered

Quote:
Questions and answers on Creationism, which should be discussed in schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution


I can't stop wondering if this is all some sort of prank on his part. These are so very ridiculous and seem to contradict his previous statements on creation.


You're soooo being ironic, right?

The fossilised sneaker print, proving man walked with dinosaurs, ought to be some kind of clue Wink :


http://ebimg.sv.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=EB&Date=20080921&Category=COMMENTARY&ArtNo=809219997&Ref=AR&Maxw=438

"Photograph taken in Nevada in 1917, showing a footprint associated with a fossil claimed to be 200 million years old. Proof that man walked the earth with dinosaurs."


Love this:

"Q. What about bones representing such species as Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal Man?

A. Created at the same time as man. They did not survive. In fact, all surviving species and many others were created fully formed at the same time. At that moment they were of various ages and in varying degrees of health. Some individuals died an instant later, others within seconds, minutes or hours."

rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sun 7 Dec, 2008 10:40 am
@dlowan,
The "fossil sneaker", Smile That's great.
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