by Stan Lemon
You will never see this movie in school, not in High School and especially not in College. It doesn’t matter if you go to a state University or a Christian University or even a Lutheran one…you won’t see this movie.
So what is this movie all about and why won’t you ever see it? First of all, it’s a documentary, but not like the kind you’re used to watching on reel slides in Chem class. It’s not even like that other recently popularized documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. This documentary deals with the suppression of freedom in the science world. Sounds boring? Don’t give up on me yet…
You’ve probably sat in Biology class and heard the teacher talk about Evolution, the Darwinian notion that all life evolved out of a single form of life, and that form of life itself has occurred by pure random chance, dumb luck you might say. Thus, humans descended from apes which descended from something else which descended from primordial slime or crystals or are perhaps just a random act of electrical farting or some nonsense like that over billions of years.
What you heard in Biology class contradicted what your Pastor taught you in Confirmation, that God created you individually and personally to be a unique and wonderful creature in Him. Furthermore, it contradicted your very senses! How can something so complex and amazing as humanity be by dumb luck? You might have spoken up in that Biology class, even called into question the proposed theory of humanity’s origin and if you did, you were likely told, “I’m not covering creationism in this class.” or “We’re not going to talk about religion, this is science.” You were silenced, shut out and maybe even got into a little bit of trouble for opposing the teacher…and that, is what this movie is about.
The documentary begins with a scientist working as the editor of a periodical for the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History who lost his job and was ostracized from the world of science for printing an article that addressed the idea of Intelligent Design. The idea, discussion and possible dialogue were completely suppressed. Ben Stein goes on to show that this suppression is symptomatic of the science world as a whole. He shows instance after instance of the science world lashing out against those who question the validity of Darwinian Evolution and how their intolerance is not scientific at all, but rather the snuffing out of personal freedom.
At this point we should pause for a minute and explain what Intelligent Design means in the film. Ben Stein doesn’t concern himself with the particulars of creation, nor do the scientists whom he interviews supporting Intelligent Design. Time and again he and those in support of Intelligent Design emphasize that this does not have to be a religious issue, it boils down to causation in the origination of life. That means that the information contained within our cells came from somewhere. Where it came from is not the issue at hand, but whether or not cellular life is totally random or perhaps created by a creator is.
The movie equates the suppression of differing ideas in the science world to that of the Berlin wall and he urges everyone to participate in the dismantling of this wall. He shows how Darwinian ideology has influenced some of the atrocities of our time. For example, Nazis extermination of the handicapped, mentally ill, elderly and the Jews is nothing more then an attempt to escalate the process of natural selection – and the Nazis even said so! Or, look at the aborting of babies because they’re genetically predisposed to sickness and disease or even euthanizing the cumbersome and costly elderly. So long Grandpa and Grandma, gotta make room for Darwin as we help natural selection move right along!
Darwinism is utterly opposed to Christendom, you can’t believe in evolution as an origin of life without first taking Christ out of creation. Once you do that, you disarm Christ of life and disarming Him of that makes His death no more different than yours or mine. Jesus is a creator so intelligent that He is the Author and Perfector of our faith, and in Him was life and the life was the light of men. This idea, this light of men must be persecuted. It must be persecuted all the way to the Cross on Good Friday and there it must die for the salvation of the world. Unlike Ben Stein, it’s no surprise to those Baptized into Jesus that the world is busy trying to shut out any notion of God, especially in science! After all, what is truth?
The world does not know what truth is. Since the fall into sin, we children of Adam have been trying to strip God of His divine authorship and authority. We strip Him of these things. Then we beat Him and give Him a crown of thorns to wear, because that is exactly what we think of His authorship. Yet, despite our denial and defamation of God, He lets us nail Himself to a cross so that He might re-create what He first created. There is nothing random when something happens twice. God is such an intelligent Designer that He creates us in our mother’s wombs and then re-creates us in the Church’s womb at the font of Holy Baptism!
You won’t see this movie at school, I guarantee that. It may be a documentary, but it’s worth your time. You can sit there in the theater knowing the answer to the question before the credits run. It’s a great film, well done and satirical and enjoyable to watch. I highly recommend it, and I give this movie four out of four lemons!
Stan Lemon is the webmaster of Higher Things and resides with His wife Sara and dog Ivan in beautiful Western Pennsylvania. He’s also a Pirates fan, Go bucs!
(The Front Page Content Manager is quick to point-out that the Cubs recently swept the Pirates.)
