Expelled full of hate
Looks like Expelled really isn’t going to provide anything new under the sun. An article on Beliefnet gives us a little more information on what the film might include.
Let the buzz begin. Not that “Expelled’s” intentionally incendiary tone will need much help from the pastors and religious-school teachers in attendance at yesterday’s meeting. From the clips and trailers they showed, the film presents a world of–to use a quote I heard repeatedly yesterday–”the new scientific movement” (Intelligent Design, in case you weren’t sure) vs. the tired, old “theory” of evolution. Relying on news-clip montages, interviews, even cut-away shots of concentration camps, “Expelled” talks of faithful scientists and other believers losing jobs, losing grants, even losing friends in defense of ID. And, relying on footage of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other atheists du jure, it sets up a worldview of ID vs. atheism, with no gray areas in between.
And, taking it even further, it posits that, without God, there can be no source of morality, no reason not to “stab someone on the subway,” to borrow another phrase I heard a couple of times yesterday (and which explained, according to Lauer and Logan, the concentration camp scenes, since the film will explore the influence of Darwinism on Hitler). So the battle for ID to be taught on par with evolution is no more, no less than a battle for the legitimacy of morality itself.
Just a furthering of anti-science bigotry. I’m getting rather tired of people saying that I can’t be a moral person just because I reject their notion of God. Just because an atheist doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean that they don’t also experience pain, feel compassion towards others, and wish to get along with their fellow man. So not only are these people not being honest in their depiction of science or religion for that matter (equating belief in God with Intelligent Design creationism), they’re also spouting hate and bigotry. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.