Tuesday, April 22, 2008

More on Expelled – A Clash of World Views (Updated)

Well we did make it to see Expelled: no intelligence allowed and was pleasantly surprised at how well the film was done. It did a very good job of contrasting world views, hence my own sub title above for the movie. Many others will give much more detailed reviews as I do not remember all of the names and comments. The whole motif of the Berlin Wall that represents the wall that Darwinian Evolutionary thought in academic institutions has set up to keep out any competing ideas was very well done. I can see how this will inevitably infuriate people but while it may make people angry it is very much the truth if one simply opens their eyes to what is going on.

However it is very obvious that academia has a world view (atheistic/Darwinian) that it does not want to relinquish. They appear to be willing to do what ever it can to hang on to the reins of academia. In a setting such as universities, not to mention public schools, that often tout themselves as places of “Free Thinking” they are anything but that.

A number of the interviewees, specifically Richard Dawkins, let the cat out of the bag, if it was not out already, that the main goal in all of this is to do what ever is needed to deny God. Dawkins goes as far as rather believing in aliens or some other form of life “seeding” earth rather than admit to the possibility of there being a God. However he never answered, at least in the clip shown, where the aliens would have come from other than he felt they had to also come through some evolutionary process.

All in all I would recommend this movie and I have heard in a comment to one of the reviews that the DVD will have much more footage of the interviews. This is not a religious or even Christian movie and does, I think, a good job of making sure that the message is that academia is locking out freedom of thought. While the topic of God was not avoided a number of the IDers interviewed were agnostics or would have at least not held to a Christian view of God. So this movie simply portrays the clash of world views and that for now one world view, academia’s Darwinian thought, hold the keys and does not want to let other in to play.

On the negative side as with any documentary, especially one aimed also as entertainment, there has to always be some healthy skepticism about editing. Michael Moore is probably not alone in editing footage to put people in the light they desire them to be and portray a message that is desired. With Expelled we need to make sure that we do not simply take Ben Stein’s version of things as sufficient. We should take the given data and place it alongside other data and see what results. Also, personally, the added breakaways to extraneous footage to make a point was for me not necessary but I realize it was part of the entrainment side of things.

Here area a few more reviews of the movie

American Vision: Expelled: The Movie—Part 1 & Expelled: The Movie - Part 2
Parchment and Pen: Expelled: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design - A Review
The Constructive Curmudgeon: Break Down the Wall: A Movie Review of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
He Lives: Expelled, the Review
Pulpit Magazine: Expelled

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