Update on Expelled and Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot

Okay, I’m done with my anti-Intelligent Design and Expelled rants for the time being. The good news is that Expelled as a movie phenomenon has fallen on deaf ears with the American public. As of today the take was less than $3,000,000 for two weeks. Now, keep in mind the religious fundamentalists have always proclaimed that if they were given the opportunity they could create the type of entertainment Americans really wanted and not that liberal, sexually perverse humanist crap that is awash in Hollywood.

Sorry, the religious wackos were wrong on several counts. First, most Americans could give a rat’s ass about science even Intelligent Design science unless it can be used to create compelling science fiction or a new iPod. That’s just the way it is, we just want to know we have the best technology available and we don’t care how we get there. After all, we can always hire Indian engineers for that!

Secondly, I think as of the moment Americans are once again focusing on bread and butter, or should I say bread & gas issues as they begin to question the wisdom of having elected an oil and gas man for president for two consecutive terms. As gas exceeds four dollars a gallon and we hear of hedge funds managers getting a $3.5 billion dollar bonus for the year even the most optimistic among us have to feel that something stinks in Denmark or should I say in the U.S.

Americans are just beginning to realize that the past two presidents and a plethora of CEOs have sold this country for some pocket change, just think about their gold parachutes and how they have transfered an entire generation’s future jobs, pensions and pollution to the likes of India and China. In this backdrop it is hard for a debate regarding evolution and Intelligent Design, regardless of the merits of either argument, to catch fire, so expect more escapist crap entertainment in the near future.

Now speaking of escapist crap, I continue my work on the sequel to Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot. The second novel is almost 550 pages but needs a good cleanup before its release. Now that the podcast is complete I am getting significantly more downloads by listeners which is always a good sign. Since the trilogy will be basically my life’s work I am determined to get it right and continue to obsessively revisit my previous writings and the podcasts. I have already re-recorded the first two podcast chapters and I am working on third chapter as I write this. It was a necessary evil since upon my re-listening of the original podcast I have found that I recorded the narrative at the pace of a chipmunk on crack. Also, as you may have noticed the Flores Girl graphics and web site will be getting a significant face lift from me as well.

Now I should point out that this rewriting behavior is not the norm for most writers. Generally, you write your first book and you get away from the wreckage as quickly as possible in much the same fashion you would flee from a toxic waste dump. Writers, and artists in general, have a lot of self-loathing going on. In fact, most agents and publishers encourage this behavior figuring you will start getting right by your third and fourth book.

Fortunately, I can’t do this because I find that the two main characters of the novel, Sarah and Richard, to be so compelling and such great foils for making my worldly observations come to life, I feel I would be doing a disservice to my readers and missing a great opportunity if I didn’t give the trilogy my all. And frankly, I don’t have that many novels in me since I am not one to rehash the same themes over and over again (I actually have one other novel in the works and a series of short stories including an interesting take on Sarah’s life taking a different path other than the one traveled in Flores Girl).

That’s it for now and I will share with you my future marketing plans for Flores Girl in which I may undertake some real hack marketing tactics. You can almost smell the sleaze!  And speaking of sleaze the entire first Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot novel is available as a free download at WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

Expelled and Why Intelligent Design Sucks as Science

I just came to the realization as to why the religious and creationist wackos hate science. We all have heard the phrase, “god helps those that help themselves.” This guiding philosophy has been both the impetus and driving force behind the technology and science of man. The more illiterate among us, myself included, would assume this quote to be a variation on a bible verse but it actually originated from Ben Franklin and his Poor Richard’s almanac. In fact the bible take on helping yourself is far different:

Jer 17:5 (NIV) This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”

Prov 28:26 (NIV) He who trusts in himself is a fool…

The answer and direction espoused by these verses is quite clear to a true believer: obedience to god and prayer is the only answer to living your life. This is a fundamental religious dogma that is necessary for religious leaders to maintain control over men. And remember most religion has little to do with god but has so much more to do with men controlling the destinies of other men. Blasphemy you say? Well ask yourself why have there been tens of thousands of different religions created over time? Can they all be right? How do you know your’s is right? The Egyptians were pretty sure they got it right and so were the Mayans and now we scoff at those beliefs. Do you think for a second our religions won’t change too over time as our knowldege grows? True believers don’t want to ask these questions nor do they want somebody else doing the same. Just wouldn’t be kosher to cast doubt on the words men use to speak for god.

Wow, when you analyze rigid fundamentalist bible thinking like the verses above you got to wonder why and how we got to the present stage in our cultural development? The answer is simple. Over the years science has proven to be more effective than prayer in improving our living standards. Prayer takes you only so far and if you believe in free will even the religious among you have to acknowledge that god will only go so far in helping you. I mean if god was going to intervene on a daily basis you think he would have thrown his weight behind rescuing the 12 million people that were being sent to the death camps in WWII. I mean there had to be some good people that died in the holocaust, right? Oh, I forgot that was Darwin’s fault according to Ben Stein and the Expelled crowd, as if hundreds of years of anti-Semitism never existed before. On the other hand, you have sports athlete regularly muttering silent prayers to god for his intervention. I don’t know, you have to take responsibility for your own life at some point and begging god for help is really an ineffective strategy in terms of getting ahead in your life. You can ask for strength but not for direct help!

Science and technology are at the forefront of that do it yourself belief culture and evolution/genetics are just one branch on that tree of thought. Compare ID as a science with biology. Intelligent Design arguments can be basically boiled down to a single argument of irreducible complexity, that is to say that life is far too complex to have been created by time and a series of random events/mutation alone and, finally, that most mutations are not beneficial to a living organism. That’s it, it is more of a negative argument than a substantial alternative theory. So what do they propose to teach in place of evolution? Intelligent Design has little to say about this other than there was some intelligent agent responsible for the creation and direction of life, wink wink…god!

So what can you do if you believe in Intelligent Design? I’m afraid it is more of the old bible formula of prayer and obedience. No sense in studying fossils because god was directing everything and his ways are not that easily discernible by man. I mean all of the extinct species were all in the Garden of Eden anyway at about the same time and wiped out by the flood, right? Genetics, who the hell needs genetics when god is at the steering wheel? And that is the problem with Intelligent Design, as my old genetics teacher once said, “you can’t do much with it.” But don’t worry if we Americans as a people decide to turn our collective backs on the teaching of evolution and genetics you can rest assured the rest of the world won’t feel so obliged and they will gladly fill the void. That will be a sorry day as a great nation and experiment in democracy falls to the dustbins of history.

Erik John Bertel

Sorry about spamming my own blog but the entire first Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot novel is available as a free download at WWW.FREE-KINDLE.NET

Expelled and More Rush Limbaugh Crapola

Here are some more pearls of wisdom from Rush Limbaugh about Darwinists and apparently most biologists:

“These people fear God. These scientists, they fear God because God has the answers, God’s smarter than they are. God’s judgmental. That’s one of the things that liberals and atheists hate about religion anyway is that it’s judgmental.”

Obviously, Rush thinks he is going to fare well during judgment day. I guess he will get a pass on his vicodin law breaking spree with the big guy based on the body of his prior work. Yet, you know the freak is also into something else that is equally perverse.  That’s how it is with these chicken-hawk conservative types,  in real life they tend to be the biggest freaks.  What cracks me up is that these creationist horses asses like Rush love to play the card that most biologist and Darwinists are atheist when in fact quite the opposite is true. But hey, never let the facts get in the way, you know those atheists-agnostic-humanist-communists are holding back free speech in our schools.

Below is my original rant regarding Expelled and the Mighty Wind:

Okay, I just can’t let go of this one. The other problem with this silly pseudo-science is that Intelligent Design purports to have some great interfaith universality when in fact teaching Intelligent Design would be contrarian to many other religious beliefs as well. Many Buddhists have little need or no need for a creator/personal god guiding the direction of the universe and for a fundamentalist the god of Intelligent design would weaken the power of their personal god or their fundamental belief in a 6,000 year old earth. Intelligent design, as advocated by Expelled, is not only bad science but bad religious dogma for many people as well and is specifically a tired, rehashed Judaic/Christian fundamentalist dogma.

Furthermore, Intelligent Design is a belief structure that is reduced to disingenuous nitpicking at the edges of scientific theory called evolution, looking for a foothold where none is forthcoming or where the ground is forever shifting. And does anyone care the least bit that Intelligent Design actually destroys any illusion of free will? I mean when does god’s hand comes down and beginning squeezing the jaws of the chosen people so that the next generation can have one less molar? I am of course referring to the observation that our wisdom teeth have become superfluous in modern man as our jaws continued to be downsized. And if god is removing teeth as part of his great evolutionary plan what else is god mucking with? If all of this sounds rather silly as an argument well that’s because it is. Rather than being liberating like religion, Intelligent Design is a bastard child of Creationist’s convenience and is not terribly convincing even as a pseudo-science.

The loss of ‘free will’ is of no concern to Rush Limbaugh, after all he believes life should be scripted as per his own neo-conservative credo and no dissenter need apply. Rush skewers the scientific community with such dismissive comments as “the condescension and the arrogance these people have, they will readily admit that Darwinism and evolution do not explain how life began.” Hey, lard ass, it’s the theory of evolution and not the theory of creation! Jeez, can’t you follow any discriminating, structured argument?

So now the great vicodin-fueled gas bag himself has added his own personal endorsement to the movie Expelled. And why not? Minimal critical thinking is required to embrace Intelligent Design and with Intelligent Design god’s chosen species is once again returned to the top of the proverbial spiritual food chain. I should point out since man made god in his own image it comes as no surprise that most fundamentalist religions make it a point to exclude women from their own theocracy. When does the madness and stupidity stop?

Alright, I know I said that insults have to stop but really isn’t Rush Limbaugh just an escaped caricature from some perverse adult theme park? Al I can say is just be careful Rush or scientists will stop inventing new pain killers for you to buy from your housekeeper. And that cheesy photo of him with a cigar! Doesn’t he know cigars go best with a tacky Hawaiian shirt!

Sorry about spamming my own blog but the entire first Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot novel is available as a free download at WWW.FREE-NOVELS.NET

Expelled the Movie And the Smell of Death in Wisconsin

Creationists are fond to equate Darwinism with eugenics and fascism as they dangle the fear of Nazi state led eugenics programs in front of the faces of the unsophisticated. Of course, much of the eugenics under the Nazi regime was little more than your old-fashioned garden variety Antisemitism and a variety of other racist beliefs couched in an official pogrom and jargon. It had little to Darwinism but the creationists figure if you throw enough crap about something is bound to stick to someone. The fact that the holocaust was the result of hundreds of years of religious intolerance in Europe just obscures the Expelled crowd’s true agenda. Of course, to blame religion and god for the holocaust is just as absurd as to blame Darwin. Blame the rightful source for this continued desecration of humanity: man’s baser behavior.

Well, now is the time for evolutionists and Darwinists to stick some crap to their Intelligent Design dogma. So to all of my creationists friends by all means reject science, embrace the world of gods and angels preferably a Christian world and by all means revel in your ignorance. You know more than the eggheads will ever know because, after all you, are a true believer. To hell with nuance and shades of gray, you are black and white man and god is on your side.

And let’s face it, verifiable and testable results are not your norm but are rather the tools of subjugation utilized by the atheist scientists. Your norm is the rejection of science and medicine wherever it conflicts with your god-view. So if a home schooled eleven year-old girl dies of a diabetic shock because her fundamentalist parents believe more in prayer than insulin, so be it. Such is your influence that in Wisconsin there is a statue protecting such child abusive behavior. Wisconsin state statute 948.03(6) provides an exemption from the law against failing to act to protect children from bodily harm for what is referred to as “Treatment through prayer.” The statute says: “A person is not guilty of an offense under this section solely because he or she provides a child with treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone for healing in accordance with the religious method of healing … in lieu of medical or surgical treatment.”

Now if you are a normal, all American, family loving kind of guy or gal this sort of law should raise some type of proverbial red flag for you. While you have been sleeping the religious wackos have been working with our sycophant, pandering politicians and have been quietly subverting our laws and making the world save for family child abusers. Then again, you are probably more concerned about the latest puppy mill scandal on Oprah than you are about that eleven-year old girl who recently died. Such is our world where the pious get absolved of sin and yet they get to cast aspersions about everybody else who differs with their strange world view. Such is the world of the Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed followers, where they want to extend this type wacky rationale and thinking into our public schools and all in the name of fair play!

Remember, Intelligent Design as depicted in Expelled is not a science and if this continues to spread and infect our future generations expect to read more headlines like the one in Wassau, Wisconsin. You may be okay with that daunting prospect but I am not going to ignore that young girl’s smell of death.

The Hoax – Movie Starring Richard Gere

I had the opportunity the other night to watch the “Hoax” starring Richard Gere. Depending on your age, you may or may not know the true story about Clifford Irving’s claim as to having the access and the autobiographical rights to the mysterious billionaire Howard Hughes and his life story. Actually, for many of you Howard Hughes is simply the weirdo Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed in the Scorsese film “The Aviator”. However, back in the seventies Hughes was one of the few bona-fide billionaires that people had some knowledge about before today’s era of the celebrity watch. That is not to say there were no celebrity watches but that was the exclusive purvey of the tabloids and not of the mainstream news.

Anyway, the point is that Clifford Irving claims to have perpetuated his hoax on the publishing industry because of the shoddy way they treated his original writings. Like all writers they didn’t give him any respect for his work and Clifford automatically assumed that the publishing industry consisted mainly of idiots and fools. So think of the Hoax as the ultimate revenge film by an author and you can enjoy the message from this engrossing film.

Welcome to Millennium Writing!

This is my first post about the art of writing and the trials and tribulations of finding an audience in the new Web 2.0 world. First, let me introduce myself as Erik John Bertel, the writer and narrator of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot. Flores Girl is an adventure trilogy I have been writing for the past two years. The first book, the Children God Forgot is complete and currently available as a free Podcast at Podiobooks.com I am over four hundred pages into the sequel and have also begun work on the third and final novel in the series.

My blogging energies will be divided between the challenges of writing good fiction and the larger task of marketing those very same writings. Frankly writing fiction is fun, marketing is far more challenging and far less than fun.

Erik John Bertel