Posted on 04/13/2008 5:17:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ben Stein's new film EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed, is a documentary that appears to be about Intelligent Design and the shortcomings of Darwinism. The film is not just an exploration of the limitations of The Origin of Species, but a journey to uncover the mindset that Darwinism engendered among those with an agenda to replace traditional understandings of God with pure materialism.
But far from offering a weighty discourse on theories of monism, Stein delivers a pop culture MTV-style Road Film that has already reignited the Culture Wars, with a just-issued cease and desist letter from a group at Harvard. The Harvard letter claims that a clip in the film plagiarizes an "Inner Life of the Cell" animation, and possible further legal action could disrupt the opening of the film on April 18.
We enter Ben Stein's argument through images of the building of the Berlin Wall. Using inter-cuts, upbeat music, original text, and exciting graphics, Ben creates his own music video genre, as he visits professors who were "expelled" from universities and think tanks for merely mentioning the words "Intelligent Design" in their work.
Then, unexpectedly, we find ourselves in Dachau Concentration Camp, but this is no ordinary detour. Suddenly, we realize that Ben is about to link Darwinism to Nazism, by way of exposing the mindset of that gave way to the Jewish Holocaust.
The gas chambers of Dachau are horrifyingly familiar. What begs question of the ontological connection between Darwinism and Nazism, however, is the tour of the Nazi Hadamar Eugenics Labs. Watching a modern-day German woman guide Ben through the labs is, to put it mildly, revolting. Despite Ben's gentle prodding, she remains neutral throughout, unmoved, as she impassively informs Ben that 15,000 victims were exterminated in the gas ovens of the Eugenics labs during World War II. Then, despite her polite demeanor, she confirms what we fear most. She is unable to express any remorse whatsoever for the atrocities that happened; how Nazis, in pursuit of the master race, exterminated disabled, insane, feeble-minded, homosexual, and fragile human beings, alongside 6,000,000 Jews.
By revealing this mindset for its arrogance and profound lack of shame, Ben succeeds in motivating a new generation of film-goers to "Never again!" tolerate genocide. At the same time, he pushes the "story" forward through the ideas behind the story.
The "Story Spine": Materialism vs. Consciousness
All great movies reveal moral truth. They reveal what the story is about through the ideas behind the story. In this film, the "spine" that reveals the "story" hinges on the conflict between materialism, as Darwinism, and consciousness, as Intelligent Design.
Materialism is a philosophy that holds that the only thing that can be proven to exist is matter. In general terms, Darwinism relies on materialism, to the exclusion of dualism, pluralism, and idealism. Intelligent Design, by contrast, relies on consciousness in the realm of phenomenal reality, to explain that which cannot be explained by matter.
In simple terms, Darwinism addresses the material changes that take place in cells in evolution, but never addresses the origin of life itself. In a world where materialism prevails, there is a permanent academic divide between Darwinism and Intelligent Design; and like two cultures separated by the Berlin Wall, never the twain shall meet.
The reality that godless materialism gave way to Darwinism and, at the same time, became the basis (as historical materialism) for Nazism, may be too much 19th Century German intellectual history (Kant, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Nietsche, Marx, Engels, and Hegel) for some viewers to appreciate within this 93-minute film. For others, this is why Ben's nexus creates a fascinating road-trip unlike any other.
Free Speech
Rather than detail the implications of Neo-Darwinism by tracing the history of dialectical materialism and historical materialism in the development of Nazism, Ben makes his satirical case by featuring the flappable faces of authoritarian academics who ferociously deny Ben's right of academic inquiry into the origin of life and the universe. In so doing, Ben succeeds in positioning this film, in the narrow context, as an argument against academic suppression, and in the larger context, as the "must see" pop culture argument for free speech.
Via onscreen interviews with Neo-Darwinists such as Professor Richard ("The God Delusion") Dawkins, Ben typifies the pervasive practice of authoritarian attitudes in academic elites, particularly toward God-fearing people. As such, this is not a film about believers vs. non-believers. This is a first-rate expose about the consequences of suppressing freedom of expression, based on the questionable assumption that atheistic secularism is the state religion of the United States of America.
As history reveals, however, the proliferation of any fascist, authoritarian or totalitarian mindset wreaks grave consequences that are not limited to the atrocities that happened in Hitler's Germany. Stalinism, Maoism, and Communism plagued the 20th Century with the world's most sinister dictators (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, to name a few) who delivered mass genocides totaling well over 130 million deaths.
The Problem of God
This film states that Neo-Darwinism is about world view, not scientific exploration. At its heart, however, the film also addresses the role of consciousness in human development; that is, the capacity to discern right from wrong. By depicting this dialectic through the prism of the Holocaust, the film succeeds in raising the most basic philosophical question we all face as human beings: The Problem of God.
To make this point in the historical context, Ben visits the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument, to rediscover the true meaning of freedom. By reminding us that freedom exists as a gift from God, Ben brings to light that America defends the dignity and rights of all human beings, regardless of race or creed, by virtue of the fact that that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights."
The Desire to be God
Meanwhile, the viewer is tacitly making his or her private assessment of the two sets of onscreen proponents and their opposing world views: 1) those that ascribe to the atheistic (Darwinian) view that reflects itself in the extreme end of the materialist realm as the desire to be god, and 2) those that credit the theistic (Intelligent Design) view that reveals itself in the idealist realm, as the search for God.
In a sublime moment at the film's climax, Ben presses Professor Richard Dawkins to explain the origins of life. According to Professor Dawkins, there is no God; but it is possible, and indeed likely, that intelligent life from outer space landed on earth, and that's how it all got going.
Freedom of Moral Conscience (The Moral of the Story)
Discerning right from wrong is different from knowing right from wrong. The German tour guide at Hadamar Eugenics Labs may have been able to discern right from wrong, but somehow, was not able to know right from wrong.
This capacity for moral conscience, like academic and scientific inquiry, is fundamental to freedom of expression. Despite all the failed ideas and experiments along the continuum of intellectual history, we still return to, and America relies on, the universal moral truths handed down by the Jews, to all human beings in the form of moral conscience, through Christian Enlightenment.
And for those who insist on authoritarian scientific inquiry to the exclusion of other forms of expression, please be referred to Webster for the etymology of the word conscience, with its Latin roots "com+scire" which literally means "to know more...at science."
As images of the Berlin Wall being torn down fill the screen, we are left with the idea that freedom of thought is fundamental to the scientific process, as well as to the search for God and the development of a moral conscience.
Above all, we appreciate that America (where 82% believe in God) is the hope for mankind. And this movie, thanks to freedom of expression, is for grown-ups, regardless of age.
EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed opens nationally on April 18.
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Kate Wright is the author of Screenwriting is Storytelling.
No honest review would equate ID and Creationism.
Why not?
The Discovery Institute's Wedge Strategy lays out the plan whereby they will push religion in the guise of science.
The phrase “cdesign proponentsists” in a draft of the Pandas book shows that the term “design proponents” almost completely replaced “creationists” in 1987, following the U.S. Supreme Court's Edwards decision. None of the definitions or text changed -- just "creationists" being replaced by "design proponents."
And finally a Federal District Court has weighed the evidence and determined that ID is creationism (Dover).
So why is it that a review would not note this obvious connection between ID and creationism.
Oh, my, what a brilliant reply. I never, ever considered that way -- That I'm Yellow. But now that I think about it, Wow! I am Yellow (what's the matter, don't like Asians?)! That's just totally devastating. I don't know how anyone could recover from that. And such amazing insight and intuitive, and inferential, and nay -- dare I say it -- deductive reasoning! I'm floored. I'm stunned. I'm doing kowtows in front my computer, chanting, "I am not worthy! I am not worthy!" over and over again. I don't know how I'll ever manage to post on any forum ever again. Nay, I don't know if I'll ever again be able type another word, I'm so stunned by the brilliance of your response.
Let me read that again: "And you're showing yours: Yellow."
Wow! It's even better the second time. The diamond-like brilliance shines out brighter than a thousand suns. Shakespeare was ne'er so pithy, Byron such a wit, nor Elvis more tuneful! I can't see how anything I ever read will ever again be enjoyable in the shadow of your comment. Food shan't ever again be as flavorful nor drink as intoxicating.
That's just... I really don't know what more to write... I really don't.... I mean, just... Wow!
Sound familiar???
Want to try for three times? Or are you capable of learning from your mistakes?
Iv'e heard that some Evolutionist scientists believe it is the highest point in Evolution. Since you know so much about science, what do you say about homosexuality?
I couldn't care less one way or another.
Wow! You remembered a comment of mine and thought it good enough to borrow it. Thank you for the compliment with regard to my writing.
And you have shown once again that you and you ilk cannot take rightful criticism. what I said was true and you know it! Your ilk are killing homosexuals with your lies while we want them to live! If the moderator wants to take this one off by your squealing then I will write again and again and again! Nothing I have said merits being censored; a but we are talking about "Expelled; No Intelligence Allowed" aren't we???
LOL! And you call me Yellow!
It's called eating your own words.
celmak: It's called eating your own words.
The English language joins science on the list of subjects of which you are ignorant.
But I notice you left off the personal attack on this post--after the first two were Removed by Moderator.
Maybe you are capable of learning!
You might try this site: Expelled Exposed: Flunked, not expelled: what Ben Stein isn't telling you about intelligent design. Perhaps you will learn something there.
It's called eating your own words.
And tasty words they are, should I have to eat them. If it makes you feel better to think I am, then go right ahead and imagine me chowing down on them.
LOL! And you call me Yellow!
Hardly. If someone is homosexual, I have no problems with it one way or the other. The only reasons I would care is for the potential humor value. Or if they are in the mold of Roy Cohn, in which case the problem is hypocrisy, not homosexuality.
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.
-- Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed.
The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
OK, but again, "religion" is not the same thing as "creationism."
The phrase “cdesign proponentsists” in a draft of the Pandas book shows that the term “design proponents” almost completely replaced “creationists” in 1987, following the U.S. Supreme Court's Edwards decision. None of the definitions or text changed -- just "creationists" being replaced by "design proponents."
Obviously creationists are design proponents, in the same way that Bassett hounds are dogs. The latter is a broader term. That doesn't legitimize identifying all dogs as Bassett hounds.
And finally a Federal District Court has weighed the evidence and determined that ID is creationism (Dover).
LOL, so a court can tell people that they don't really believe what they think they do! Good one.
So why is it that a review would not note this obvious connection between ID and creationism.
Connection? Sure. But pushing ID does not equal pushing Creationism, at least as the word has always been understood.
There were no personal attacks, only the fact that how you and your Evo sudo-scientist belief that it is the highest point of Evolution in being homosexual giving them the idea that it is OK to be one; this theory is killing then and you have their blood on your hands.
There were no personal attacks, only the fact that how you and your Evo sudo-scientist belief that it is the highest point of Evolution in being homosexual giving them the idea that it is OK to be one; this theory is killing then and you have their blood on your hands.
There were personal attacks; that is why your posts were removed by the moderators.
(Someone reposted your original post at DarwinCentral, so it is no use denying what you wrote.)
Since all Evo's are either Socialist or Communist It is evident you don't like Cohn for his anti-Communism rather than possibly being homosexual; go back to Huffington Post!
Keep posting.
You're just demonstrating the accuracy of what Lincoln wrote about remaining silent.
Can't find it; are you lying?
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