John (@bynkii) noted that Roger Ebert reviews the “Intelligent Design” defense flick “eXpelled” which is apparently a “documentary”:
Toward the end of the film, we find that Stein actually did want to title it “From Darwin to Hitler.” He finds a Creationist who informs him, “Darwinism inspired and advanced Nazism.” He refers to advocates of eugenics as liberal. I would not call Hitler liberal. Arbitrary forced sterilization in our country has been promoted mostly by racists, who curiously found many times more blacks than whites suitable for such treatment.
Ben Stein is only getting warmed up. He takes a field trip to visit one “result” of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. “As a Jew,” he says, “I wanted to see for myself.” We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. “It’s difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place,” he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.
How does it make you feel to have followed a reasoning through, been convinced of the arguments and then be compared to the Nazis just because you don’t believe in invisible Sky Masters?
It makes you angry.
Intelligent Design is a lie. During my third year at Grammar School, we were taught Religious Education by Sister Mary-Jo, a Catholic nun who was never far from her guitar. She explained to my class, by all accounts a group of god-fearing but intelligent fourteen-year-olds, that Genesis was a parable – an explanation of the creation of the world which could easily be understood by ignorant goat herds and fishermen more than two thousand years before the first moon landing. Some things, she reasoned, were not meant to be taken literally.
Intelligent Design, at the root, restores the concept that Genesis is the literal truth. And that’s fine if you’re trying to raise a nation of goatherds. But I’d like to hope we’re raising nations of thinkers, scientists, engineers, user interface experts, socio-economic advisors, hairdressers and call-centre salespersons.
Coming from another country within the UK to Northern Ireland and being a complete Atheist has been quite hard.
If I express my views in any way I am offending someone, yet I am expected to take a daily dose of religion from every angle of life over here.
Religion is far too involved in every day life here – compare it with Scotland which is converting all it’s churches to bars and flats. Until all the recent Polish immigration Scotland was the country losing religion the fastest in the western world. It just isn’t seen as relevant there now. It certainly isn’t forced upon anyone or engrained in every day life.
Roll on the days of integrated schools where religious education is about sikhism, islam, and christianity, and not just about how bad the other side is.
Let me also say – I have no problems with people who want to believe, but they should respect others views and keep their beliefs to themselves, as I am expected to keep my non-belief to myself.
Hang on, can I be the first to invoke the Dodds Corollary of Godwin’s Law on a movie?
“When debating a particular subject, if a comparison or implied connection is drawn between the opponent’s argument and Hitler and the Nazi Party, the maker of that statement is automatically discredited and the debate is automatically lost by the person or group who referenced the connection to Hitler or the Nazis.”
I didn’t know you were a sceptic Matt!
I just was reading about Roger Ebert’s review of Expelled! on PZ Myers’s blog:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/ebert_on_expelled.php
Neither Myers or Ebert pull their punches and it’s just great!