Father,
Could you give us a plug for any readers you may have in the metropolitan Atlanta area?
Please help us publicize this important film. Atheists worldwide are determined that this film will not be shown in theaters. See extended clips from the movie at here.
Ben Stein in EXPELLED
Merchants Walk Theater
1301 Johnson Ferry Road
Marietta, GA 30068
Phone: (678) 560-1111
Admission is free, donations appreciated.
Block Reservations available by emailing:
expelled07sep08@comcast.net
or calling (404)713-5753
If you make reservations please arrive by 4:00 pm.
Sponsored by: Parish of St. Hilda of Whitby
www.sthildasacc.org
18 comments:
"Atheists worldwide are determined that this film will not be shown in theaters."
That's a lie. Yoko Ono and EMI had an injunction against the further distribution of this film because of a claim of copyright infringement based on the use of part of the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. They've lost the injunction because the use of this song falls under "fair use" for criticism which is legal.
For more information about this, search for: yoko ono expelled imagine
Yawn. The ongoing furor of well-meaning Christians (and evidently some Jews as well, a la Stein) feel the need to continue the war on evolution as a scientific theory. This is just an welcome rehashing of the false modernist dichotomy between science and faith. A category mistake, as Rowan Williams in one of his rare bursts of coherence put it.
The fact is that evolution is a well supported biological theory that many Christians (e.g., Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project) have no problem with. Nor should they. The opening chapters of Genesis recount the eternal relationship between God and man, creator and created, as well as how we fell from the full promise and duty of that creation. To force a literal interpretation of the events is to instance upon a level of literalism that neither St. Augustine nor Calvin believed in.
So, Anonymous, does that mean we shall now see this movie in theaters after all? If so, your accusation may seem justified.
Y'know, it doesn't take some kind of conspiracy to keep such a film out of the theater. I, for one, would be rather sympathetic to its message, but I'd be uninclined to spend money to see it. If theater people are not convinced it will be a money-making thing, they aren't going to show it.
ed
Apologies, all:
"This is just an UNwelcom..."
"To force a literal interpretation of the events is to INSIST..."
It's been a long week.
Brain G.
I have never seen this movie. If people go into an Anglican church to discuss the possible relevance it may have to religion, and it works as outreach, that alone would give them a reason to show it.
Agreed that Christian faith can live with evolution itself. However, if this movie makes people aware of the fact that there are no simple organisms, and that pure Darwinian evolution has been discredited, it will have achieved a good purpose. The problem with Darwinism is its simplistic approach, and with that a simplistic attempt to explain away God. The complexity of every cell is, in fact, irreducible, even though many people have missed that whole point, mis-defined it, and wrongly proclaimed triumph over "irreducible complexity." If any fact is known to modern science, it is that even the smallest cell contains the entire DNA code of the whole animal. That fact is what Darwinism cannot live with.
Brian, like you I am not a fan of
the pseudo-scientific 6/24 "Creationism" which is big these days amongst certain sectors of fundamentalist Protestantism. But that's not what this movie is about, and I would hardly think that would be Fr Roddy's motivation for promoting it.
"Creationism" of the 6/24 sort is quite different from the philosophical position of "Intelligent Design." Many people confuse the two, and the 6/24 boys have tried to jump on the ID band-wagon. The ID people sometimes (unfortunately) use the term "creationism," but they attach a very different meaning to the word.
Without having seen the movie, my impression is that it deals with the matter of academic freedom, particularly academic freedom for those who do not gee-haw with or kowtow to atheistic inter-pretations of evolution.
The menace of political correctness in higher education is a dangerous reality. Recognizing this does not make one into a fundamentalist yahoo, as much as the regnant radicals who control much of higher education would have everyone believe.
Congratulations to Fr Roddy and to St Hilda's Parish for this enterprise. I wish them every success. The movie can be discussed on it own merits.
LKW
I did see the movie with a Baptist relative and we both enjoyed its message. Anyone who thinks that evolution explains the origin of life has blinders on. Evolution explains the origin of species, not life. The movie makes that very important distinction quite clear. It is a distinction which most evolutionists would rather ignore.
In Christ,
Carter
Be sure and view all the clips to get a fair impression of the film.
This is not an anti evolution theory film. This is about academic freedom, and exposing the radically hostile and negative feelings (not beliefs) of academia and the scientific establishment.
As far as the "lie," that atheists don't want the film shown, web search of will confirm that politically organized atheists are very much opposed to this film and clearly do not want it shown.
I did not know Yoko Ono was a Christian though.
Do you think she would have filed a law suit against Richard Dawkins using a piece of Lennon's music in a documentary of his?
Fair points, Fathers and Hart and Wells. I have an deep-seated hatred for young earth creationism (as I'm sure is plenty obvious!)that I should not have let run rampant here.
I am glad for this post for an entirely different reason. It caused me to get off my duff and call first Father Roddy and then my sister who lives in Atlanta. LD, she will be off to services at St Hilda's this Sunday. I should have done that some time ago.
But when it comes to the matter of Darwinism, just how much of it is capable of scientific proof? What repeatable experiments have made it a matter of proven science?
C. S. Lewis pointed out that before Darwin wrote his book the theory had birth in an earlier piece of literture. Darwin's own nephew pointed out that people largely accepted the theory because it gave them an excuse for satisfying their sexual appetites outside of marriage while it was used by both Marx and Hitler to boster their own theories.
Those who would not have this film shown belong to the clique that has strangled academic freedom in our colleges and universities. The would also like to see Christians silenced when our faith and morality differ with their political opinions. If you have not seen the film, you should. Especially before we are forced back into the catacombs.
The film makes a strong case for a connection between the theory of evolution, eugenics, nazism and atheism and the cost to society besides the issue of academic freedom.
The proponents of Evolution, when brought square to the question of the beginning of life, offer "crystals" and "space aliens" as the possible sources of life. That scene alone was worth the cost. Stein makes his case.
It has huge approval of most of the people that have seen it. St Hilda will likely have quite a successful event with this film.
Speaking of evolution here is a good laugh:
http://www.askthepriest.org/askthepriest/2008/05/father-matthew.html
The film makes a strong case for a connection between the theory of evolution, eugenics, nazism and atheism and the cost to society besides the issue of academic freedom.
Without the modern treatment Darwinism received, I think it unlikely that we would be having to battle against abortion, infanticide and euthanasia.
The connection to Nazism should be obvious, as well as the boost it gave to racism in our own free countries. The law that made the much misunderstood and factually distorted Scopes trial possible was actually passed based on a moral argument; that to teach Darwinism would undermine morality, and cheapen human life. They were right.
"So, Anonymous, does that mean we shall now see this movie in theaters after all? If so, your accusation may seem justified."
After the dismal response it got during the first showings and the even more dismal reviews, it is the theater owners who are the ones who don't want it shown. That's why the Expelled promoters are actually paying theaters to show the film. So, yes, you may still get to see the film in theaters. That was the point of this blog post, right?
Just because atheists did not want this film shown because of the lies and misrepresentations contained therein, does not mean that any atheists were trying to keep it from being shown. I have been following this film since I first heard of it a year ago and I know of not a single case where an atheist has attempted to keep it from being shown. Whether or not Yoko Ono or the folks at EMI are atheists is immaterial. Their injunction was for copyright violation.
So Anonymous, in light of the websites that Fr.John has pointed us to, I must ask if you are refuting the facts by ignoring them. Repetition is not refutation. As for lies and distortion, are you saying that there really is academic freedom? Watch out before you answer, because this is not even a matter for debate in one of my circles, but rather an established fact. Are you saying that complexity really is reducible to simple organisms, and that complexity is the addition of cells into advanced structures?
Darwinism is as outdated as body humors in medicine, or as a flat earth with a revolving solar system compared to what Copernicus brought to light. It is yesterday's fable, not today's science.
So, Fr. Roddy, how do we get 'Expelled' shown in a theater near us??? Please share the playbook.
Nathan
I once read a splendid early work of Jacques Barzun called _Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage_
I must get around to rereading it some time, but in the meantime I recommend it.
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