Expelled - A Short Review
On Friday I saw Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about it because it covers a lot of territory that has been covered, in one way or another, here.
First, what the film is not:
Expelled is not a film that says intelligent design is correct.
Second, what the film is:
Expelled is a film that says there are two possible answers to the question of existence and one of those possible answers has been unfairly and illogically excluded from consideration.
From here the film spends a great deal of time talking about what has happened to those that give ID a fair shake (even mentioning ID in a way that doesn’t criticize it can get you fired), how ID is misrepresented by its enemies (Creationism in disguise… an attempt to get prayer back into the classroom), how worldview seems to precede science rather than the other way, and, in the end, what really may be at war here isn’t science vs. science but atheism and religion. That this whole argument is about worldview.
Stein shows that while not all Darwinists are atheists - a great many are. Or become shortly after embracing Darwinism.
Stein then takes a trip into history to see what kind of worldview a Darwinist perspective would create and he comes to Nazism. He’s quick to point out that not all Darwinists are Nazis, but that Darwinism was a foundational pillar of the Third Reich. And while Nazism wasn’t embraced in the West, eugenics certainly was. In fact, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a prominent supporter of eugenics. And it is also amongst Darwinists you find the loudest supporters euthanasia.
Stein visited Dachau and I must say it was at this point I began to cry. I visited that place. I saw what he saw, learned what he learned, and stepped where he stepped. If I may interject my opinion here - I see no reason, not one, to make me think the horrors of the Holocaust cannot be revisited upon humanity again if the Darwinistic, atheistic, worldview takes hold of a nation once more. Darwinism tells us a life is worth no more than what it can contribute and/or what we say it’s worth. We already know we have it within ourselves to say a race of people isn’t worth allowing to live. We already know we have it within ourselves to say the physically and mentally handicapped are worth allowing to live. What do we have that will ensure it will not happen again? That a force won’t rise up and say, “These people are keeping us back! These people are why we are weak!”
If you’ve already decided these issues for yourself then there’s nothing you can get out of Expelled. In fact, I’ll tell you I got little out of Expelled because I spend a lot of time looking at these issues. Expelled didn’t show me anything I didn’t already know.
But, if you’re undecided on this debate, if you’re open-minded, I highly suggest seeing it. It won’t make your mind up for you, and it shouldn’t, but it may expose you to things you don’t see in this argument because one side has a virtual monopoly of the stage.
I come back, in the end, to what I said the film is. Expelled is a film that says there are two possible answers to the question of existence and one of those possible answers has been unfairly and illogically excluded from consideration.
And before you dismiss intelligent design out of hand, consider that there are thousands of scientists the world over that disagree with you. I’m not saying they’re right. But if there are only two possible answers to a question shouldn’t both answers be heard and the decision as to who is right be left up to us, the people?
Or are we not smart enough to make that call?
NOTE: I disabled comments because I’ve seen comments to a topic like this degenerate into a wasteland too often. If you think ID is worthless tripe, or Darwinian evolution is full of more holes than swiss cheese, I don’t care. This piece wasn’t about debating the merits of either positions but rather the documentary itself. And I know in my heart of hearts precious little time would be spent talking about it.
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