Entry 750, on 2008-04-21 at 19:26:41 (Rating 4, Religion)
So the anti-evolution movie "Expelled" has been let loose on the world and hasn't it had a great reception... not! Despite a huge amount of propaganda from the religious right and a lot of publicity in the Blogosphere it seems to have been a bit less popular than many people thought. And the reviews have been very negative as well.
At metacritic.com it has scored 3.2 out of 10 and the comments include stuff like this: "It's hard to pinpoint what's most insulting about this obvious propaganda piece." (Ken Fox, TV Guide) and "Expelled is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike." (Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times) and "As a work of nonfiction filmmaking it is a sham and as agitprop it is too flimsy to strike any serious blows." (Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times)
So really the creationists have just made themselves look like idiots yet again. How many times are they going to make the same claims, which have already been discredited anyway? The only people they are really convincing are those who are so deluded that they already believe creationist nonsense.
But there is also the point made in this review: "In a saner universe... you could scoff at Stein and dismiss him and not give this propagandistic nonsense another thought. But... you need to see this movie because these people are not going away." (MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher). The comment "saner universe" might be better phrased as "saner country" because its primarily in the US where this nonsense is tolerated.
Creationism seems to have almost no profile at all here in New Zealand and its the same in most other western countries. if I was an American I would be embarrassed that I live in a country where a large proportion of the population think the world is just 6000 years old. That's truly pathetic and in most places it would be just ignored and treated with the contempt it deserves. But not in the US.
I don't know why, but religion seems to have a hold on the American psyche more than in other countries. I hear their president making the most bizarre comments about America getting support from beyond the stars or some similar garbage. How can someone so out of touch with reality be allowed to control the world's most powerful country? Maybe because most of its population have also lost touch with reality.
This isn't an anti-American rant. I know many Americans and they are all great people. of course, the ones I deal with don;t tend to be the creationists! But I genuinely can't understand how a country so reliant on science and technology can totally ignore the fundamental principles of science and really believe that an old book is right and modern research is wrong. Its just unbelievable!
The sub-title of the movie Expelled is "No Intelligence Allowed" and I presume they were meaning intelligent design wasn't allowed in class rooms (it is, but in theology, not science) but in reality its closer to making a statement about the movie - there's no sign of intelligence there!
Oh no. I'll be in a lake of fire with millions of others who believed we evolved from monkeys! Wait a minute. No one who knows anything about evolution thinks that we evolved from monkeys. We evolved from a common ape-like ancestor. I guess that's OK then.
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