Expelled

As a family, we have not been to a movie theater in quite a while. We were stunned when a movie and popcorn for 6 was nearly $90. We won't be going again soon (Prince Caspian is not Don's thing, so we might have just the 5 of us go).

Ah, but Expelled, the documentary by Ben Stein, was worth it. He keep us interested with his signature low-key humor and good-natured curiosity, with frequent laughs punctuated with somber thoughtfulness. His question: Can Intelligent Design be engaged by the intelligent, or does interest in ID guarantee a pink slip to its academic adherents? Stein lets both sides be heard, interviewing proponents of both strict atheistic Darwinism, and ID. The interviews are punctuated with film clips and brief comments about faith, atheism, Darwinism, academia, the Holocaust, eugenics, and more. Stein asks the hard question: What's the big deal about ID that the likes of Dawkins and others find it so abhorrent? Hmmm?

Until this film, I had a good deal of respect for Dawkins in his own field (evolutionary biology), though I find his atheist musings both tedious and offensive. But this film showed Dawkins for exactly what he is--a bigot who is anti-religious to a point of absurdity. I don't want to give away the scene where Dawkins calmly demonstrates that he is a bit of a nutter, so I'll just say that the whole theater burst out laughing as he told us all his idea of how life started. See this film.