The Blue Collar Scientist has published a meta-analysis of reviews of that giant steaming turd that Ben Stein expelled from his rectum. BCS says:

In my searchings, I didn’t find any positive reviews that weren’t associated with religious or right-wing political publications — and then only two of those.

He then presents excerpts from a dozen reviews, every single one of which savages the film brutally.

The movie will do good box office this weekend, because the producers have done a good job promoting it to the folks whose logical reasoning capabilities are about as sophisticated as Wild Thing’s.

But after the first week, word of mouth from the few people who wandered into this film by mistake will kill this turkey dead.

In emails I’ve received from the promoters, they talked about how they wanted to get this film onto the list of top ten opening weekends for documentaries. I’ve lost that link, but aside from a very few high profile films (e.g., Fahrenheit 9/11), most documentaries have small opening-weekend box office. The main reason for this is that documentaries don’t start in too many theaters. Supposedly Expelled will be in 1000 theaters. They’ll be able to make their goal. The real question is how many theaters will it be in next week? Very few, I’m sure.

As we discussed in part 2, fundies like to deny that there is a problem with overpopulation, because traveling down that route leads to things they don’t like, such as birth control and abortion. And if stabilizing the population is bad in their eyes, imagine how bad any efforts to reduce the population must be!

Well, as if they didn’t have enough stuff to worry about, the fundies are actually looking decades out, and they think they see a depopulation boom. Here’s an email I received from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:

You are Cordially Invited to Family Research Council for the documentary Demographic WINTER: the decline of the human family.

If you’re in Washington on May 12, you should RSVP. Penetrate the belly of the beast! Anyway, they go on to describe this film:

Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family explores the severe economic and social consequences of family decline and plummeting birthrates worldwide. In Demographic Winter scholars from many backgrounds give economic, social scientific, demographic and historic context to population decline and the impact families have on the strength and stability of society.

As you can see, the film is about the population issue, which already has the fundies concerned. But look at that other element: family. Somehow they managed to drag families into this. That gives them a one-two punch on this issue. Because, after all, only fundies care about the family.

OK. Let’s find out more about this movie that Tony Perkins is so excited about. The trailer is on YouTube. Please take a few minutes to watch the trailer now, and then we’ll discuss it on the other side.

(YouTube page is here)

There were a lot of claims jammed into that trailer. Obviously we need to see the movie to be able to discuss these issues thoroughly. But I do want to discuss what we can now, based on what they said in the trailer. Let’s start with some of the overblown fears.

Overblown Fear #1:
Economic Prosperity Requires Population Growth

Yes, our current economic model requires population growth, but our current economic model is wrong. The current economy requires consumption. It depends on the conversion of non-renewable natural resources into consumer goods. It is actually an illusion of prosperity, because we’re living off of a savings account, in this case the accumulated resources of the Earth: Forests, fishstocks, water, minerals, etc. All of these things are extracted from the Earth, consumed, and thrown away. As long as we keep extracting resources, we can continue our current lifestyle. More people means more consumers, which accelerates the depletion of resources, but generates even more money in the process. If population reverses, consumption declines, and the amount of money being created declines.

The problem, of course, is that resources are finite. Whether the population is growing or shrinking, once a resource runs out, the money stops.

What is needed is a different approach to economics. We need to create a sustainable economy based on sustainable levels of resource consumption. In fact, having a lower global population makes this goal much easier to achieve.

Overblown Fear #2:
Nobody to Run the Trains

Because of automation, robotics, computers, and other advanced technologies, today’s worker is way more efficient than the worker of days past. Every indication is that this trend will continue. This is a non-issue.

[Semi-] Overblown Fear #3:
Too Many Old People Sucking Services;
Not Enough Young to Pay for It

This one is a legitimate concern, but it is partially the fault of weak politicians. People are living way longer than they used to, and they will probably live even longer in the future. There is absolutely no reason for the retirement age to be where it is currently. If the government would raise the retirement age now, there would be enough money in the Social Security Trust Fund to carry that program through the end of the century.

(Or maybe not. The dirty little secret is that the government has already spent that money. The Social Security surplus has been financing deficit spending for years. When that money is due to be paid back, there won’t be enough taxpayers to foot the bill. That’s the other problem with weak politicians. They’ve destroyed the system from two different directions.)

There’s more to this issue than just Social Security. Health care is probably a bigger issue than that. We’re extending the sick end of people’s lives. We’re letting people get older, but they’re doing it while consuming medical services, usually the really expensive services.

I don’t have an answer for this problem, but you can’t solve it by increasing the birth rate. What happens when these new people get old? Now you’ve got an even bigger group of people who need expensive care. This is a pyramid that will collapse.

Somebody needs to come up with a clever solution to this problem.

Overblown Fear #4:
Depopulation

This documentary pretends that there actually will be a declining global population this century. There’s not much reason to believe that’s the case. Current projections show that the population is still rising and will continue to do so until the middle of this century. The projections suggest that a gradual decline will begin after that.

The problem is that we really don’t know what’s going to happen in the latter half of this century. You can only make projections so far out. We don’t know what economic, social, and scientific changes will occur in the future. The population could rise as easily as it might fall. Even if it does fall, as I pointed out above, that is not a problem.

How Does the Family Fit Into This?

One subject they focussed on was the family. Their experts said that the traditional family structure is the strongest, and it’s the best environment for children to grow up in.

I have seen data that suggests there is at least a little truth in these statements. The problem is, that one structure of the father, mother, and children is not realistic. Humans are more complex than that, and it’s naive to think you can force that structure onto every member of society.

This part of the documentary really appeals to the fundies, though. They can use this as a new way to attack all of those things they don’t like: women’s liberation; gay rights; divorce; pre-, post-, and extra-marital sex; etc.

It’s Not That There Won’t Be Enough People,
It’s That There Won’t Be Enough of the Right Type of People!

Much of the fear of declining birthrates is that it is the wrong people whose fertility is declining. They said in the trailer that it is only the developed nations whose rates were dropping.

That one guy said that there would be no native-born French who come from the traditional French population. He didn’t say there would be no native-born French. The country isn’t going to disappear. The demographic makeup of France will be very different. That’s what they don’t like.

The Nation magazine has a video, which discusses this aspect further. Check it out:

(YouTube page is here)

Then you’ll want to read the Nation article.

Yes, our old friend, concerned “woman” J. Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America, is going to the movies, and he’s taking us along! Old Barbie has reviewed Expelled: No Intelligent Design Evidence Presented.

(S)He writes:

“Expelled” is intellectually honest, cerebrally stimulating and delectably provocative.

I don’t know about those last two, but “intellectually honest”?! Getting interviews under false pretenses is intellectually honest? Blaming the Holocaust on the fact that species evolve is intellectually honest? WTF, man! WTF?!

Evolution = Holocaust is a total non-sequitur! Not only is that not “intellectually honest”, it isn’t even logically honest!

People come onto my blog and leave comments grousing about how I keep calling creationists “retards”! Look at the evidence, people! J. Matt Barber has to be a blithering idiot to call Expelled “intellectually honest”! Does he not understand honesty? Does he not understand intellect? He’s obviously unacquainted with both.

He then continues:

[T]he general consensus among the evolutionary scientists interviewed was that all life, including human life, likely began when lightening [sic] struck a mud puddle (you know, like Frankenstein but without all the prefab body parts).

You’re right, Barbie! That sure is an absurd story. Not like this one:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…. [Genesis 2:7]

So tell me, Barbie. How does that story work? Like Frankenstein but without all the prefab body parts?

Continuing his review:

As the movie masterfully illustrates, we live in a cultural climate where secular elitists in academia, the media and the courts chew up and spit out anyone who dares to question the gospel according to Charles Darwin. They’re absolutely terrified to follow the scientific evidence wherever it may lead.

And that evidence is what, precisely? Your people have never provided any.

They don’t want to upset the morally relative applecart, which is loosely held together by the notion that we’re all just a bunch of monkeys with an instinctive, biological excuse for all our behavioral choices. To them, life’s a whole lot easier under the theory of evolution. Without a sovereign Creator to answer to, we get to scoot along and party hearty, free from accountability.

BINGO! That’s the payoff! Read that paragraph again. This is the entire foundation that the fundies’ anti-evolution campaign rests on. It’s the real motivation.

Fundies are convinced that without God, there can be no morality. They don’t understand that evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology very cleanly explain how morality evolves and develops within human societies and even other animal species.

Fundies believe that scientists don’t want there to be a God. Scientists, intellectuals, and their co-conspirators in the Liberal Media all want to be able to run around in sinful, materialistic debauchery. They don’t want to have to answer to God for their sinful ways, so they invent an atheistic science to “prove” that God does not exist.

Not only is this belief absurd, it’s logically bankrupt. If God exists, but you pretend he doesn’t so you don’t have to adhere to his rules, that doesn’t make him go away. If he exists, wishing him away won’t work. But that’s the logic that fundies think secularists use.

It’s crazy-town logic. It makes as much sense as saying that because species evolve, Hitler killed the Jews.

You probably remember the flap last September when Kathy Griffin won an Emmy for her cable-TV reality show, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. The award was presented at the Creative Arts Emmy awards. The program was taped and scheduled for broadcast the following week on the E! cable network. She pissed off a lot of fundies with her acceptance speech:

Now, a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn’t help me a bit. If it was up to him, Cesar Milan would be up here with that damn dog. So all I can say is suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now!

This caused enough of a stink that E! was forced to cut her acceptance speech out of the broadcast.

Last night, I came upon a rerun on Bravo of a standup comedy show that Griffin taped not long after this incident. She discusses the event and its aftermath. I thought it was quite funny. I managed to find the program on YouTube. The bit is split over these two parts.

Part 1:

Part 2:

(YouTube pages are here and here.)

First Freedom First is a joint project of The Interfaith Alliance Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. They have eight core issues that they’re focussing on:

• No Religious Discrimination
• End of Life Care
• Reproductive Health
• Democracy NOT Theocracy
• Academic Integrity
• Sound Science
• Respect For All Families
• Worship … or not

They have a petition on their website that they’d like you to sign.

Equally important is their upcoming event that you should consider attending: Everything you always wanted to know about separation of church and state but were afraid to ask. It will be simulcast in theaters in 37 cities across the country on the evening of March 26. The event is free. Go on over to their website for the details and to reserve your space.

3/20/08 Update:

Here’s a You Tube video about the event:

Last night, Comedy Central premiered Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil. I was looking forward to the show, so I tuned in with great anticipation. I was actually disappointed in the program. It had some funny moments, thanks primarily to Greg Giraldo, but overall the show wasn’t very good. I might give it another shot at some future date, but I’ve already pulled it out of the season passes on my Tivo.

The premise of the show is to find out who is the root of all evil. Lewis Black is judge. Two comedians act as lawyers and make their cases. On last night’s program, Paul Tompkins argued that Oprah is the most evil. Greg Giraldo argued that the Catholic Church is evilest. (You can watch a few clips on Comedy Central’s website) Tompkins’ case for Oprah was only mildly funny, but Greg Giraldo’s case against the Church was quite funny. He slammed the Church pretty hard. While I was watching it, I was thinking “I bet Bill Donohue is having a conniption right about now!” Sure enough, he did!

The (Only?) Catholic Fundie is Apoplectic!

This morning, I cruised by the Catholic League website to see just how bonkers it made old Donohue. Holy weird-shaped oil stain on my driveway that looks nothing like the Virgin Mary! There were two diatribes to read!

The first is a blog post from yesterday, before the program even aired:

The first episode, “Oprah vs. the Catholic Church” will ask whether the talk show host or the Bride of Christ is more “evil.”

I’ve never heard that term before. But if your nickname reminds people of the Bride of Frankenstein, then of course you’re evil!

According to preview videos and printed reviews, Black charges that the Church hinders “social progress”…

Oh, I’m sorry, Bill. I thought you were going to point out some fallacies.

…and that the pope gives lectures bashing other religions.

Like I said.

The program features abundant jokes about molester priests. One would hope that a network devoted entirely to comedy would be able to come up with a few new gags rather than rely on the old bigoted chestnut about the priest and the altar boy.

You know, Bill, if the molestations had been an isolated incident, you’d have a point. If it had been one aberrant priest, you’d have a point. If it had only happened over a short time period, you’d have a point. If there had only been a few victims, you’d have a point. But none of those things is the case! The Catholic Church knew about these incidents and allowed them to continue. The Catholic Church actively covered up these incidents and moved the priests to other parishes, where they could find fresh meat. What the Church did was abhorrent. It’s going to take many decades for these wounds to heal, and until that time, your Church must be reminded constantly that civilized societies do not tolerate this behavior. For an institution that holds itself up as a bastion of morality, it did one of the evilest things imaginable. So no, Bill, we are not going to forget it and move on.

Not as Ugly as the Church’s Behavior

Now let’s move on to the press release that Bill Donohue issued today, entitled “Lewis Black’s Show Gets Ugly”. What’s truly amazing is that their press release links to a partial transcript of the show. This is supposed to show you how terrible it was and how harshly and unfairly they maligned the Church.

It actually accomplishes the opposite. The transcript is hilarious, and it makes a compelling case that the Church is evil. Bill Donohue has actually defeated his own case by posting the transcript. I’m also going to repost the transcript at the end of this article in case old Bill realizes what he’s done and pulls it down.

Let’s now look at the meat of today’s press release:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue raised questions about [the show] today:

No group in the U.S. sexually molests minors more than public school teachers; their rate is estimated to be 100 times that of Catholic priests (see the work of Dr. Charol Shakeshaft.) Moreover, the teachers unions still make it near impossible to fire a molesting teacher. Yet it wasn’t the public school industry that was labeled evil by the show, it was the Catholic Church.

What? That’s the best you can do, Bill? “It’s OK! We can molest! As long as we’re not the #1 molester, it’s OK!”

Radical Muslims behead their enemies, real and contrived, terrorize non-combatants, run planes into buildings, shoot nuns in the back, kidnap and kill bishops, burn churches to the ground, legally murder those who want to convert, but no one associated with Lewis Black’s show has the guts to get them.

This quote and the one above are typical examples of what Bill likes to do. He cites somebody who is worse, then expects to get a free pass for his own behavior.

I get that criticism for this blog. Because radical Muslims are more dangerous than radical Christians, I should leave the poor Christian fundies alone. Fundie season is closed until the radical Muslims are wiped out. Sorry. Doesn’t work that way. You have oppose all threats, not just the biggest. I go after the Christians, because other folks are tackling the Muslims.

In the case of the Lewis Black show, they take on different subjects each week. I think next week it’s Donald Trump and Viagra. I’m sure they’d do a program about radical Islam as well, if they weren’t afraid of getting blown up in retaliation. I guess that’s Donohue’s problem. The Catholic Church was targeted because they’re merely evil, not super-evil. You’re going about this all wrong, Bill! You’ll never get people to stop making fun of the Catholic Church by issuing press releases! You have to blow them up!

So instead they rip the Catholic Church for its role during the Inquisition. And that role, if truth be told, was miniscule compared to the role of the civil authorities.

No, Bill. Stop rewriting history. The Catholic Church was the civil authority.

Indeed, the role of the Catholic Church back then, as compared to the role of radical Muslims today, was positively angelic.

Yes, if by “angelic” you mean like a fallen angel.

The worst part of the show was the assault on Our Blessed Mother and Pope Benedict XVI.

He then quotes some very funny lines from the show. Since those lines are included in the transcript below, along with some other very funny stuff, I’ll just direct your attention there.

Bill finishes his diatribe with a request that we all write to Comedy Central and express our outrage. I want to know where we can write in order to express our outrage over Bill Donohue.

Here is the partial transcript of the program that Bill Donohue actually posted on his website. Most of the jokes are fair criticisms. If Donohue doesn’t like it, he’d better clean up the Church. If there’s nothing to criticize, the jokes will stop on their own.

Comedian Greg Giraldo, making the case against the Catholic Church:

Did I mention the boy fucking? A couple of years ago the Catholic Church held a two-week conference to discuss what should be done about the sexual molestation claims. Two weeks. What are they talking about? ‘Let’s stop diddling kids fellas, what do you say?’ That’s what, half hour tops? Somebody proposed a one strike and you’re out rule. One strike and you’re out. And it was voted down! They debated it, and it lost. Someone actually got up and said, ‘Look we’re not going to kick a guy out for knob gobbling just one kid. I mean that’s not fair to the guys with a lot of hot kids in their parish. Maybe we will just move them to a place with uglier kids.’ It’s awful. Dioceses in Tucson, Portland, and San Diego, just to name a few, have gone bankrupt defending these molestation claims. The Catholic Church is sack tickling its way into bankruptcy.

The Catholic Church is also evil, because it has such a grip over the mindless masses that they’ll wait in line, thousands of them in the rain for hours, just to get a glimpse of a pork rind in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Then there is the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary. God impregnated Mary. We have a whole religion based on one woman who really stuck to her story.

And let’s not forget the Inquisition. In the 1400s, Jews and Muslims in Spain were forced to convert to Catholicism. And to test the sincerity of these conversions, thousands were tortured. Let’s say you were acting a little Jewy. You know, maybe you complained about your entree. Or, you know, ‘Paco, it is a little moist. Could you towel it off for me?’ Next thing you know, they put you in one of these [shows picture of torture instrument]. Yes that is called the head crusher. I think it was used to crush your head. These are actually implements of torture that were used by the Catholic Church. How about this one [shows another device]? It is called the breast ripper. Yeah, I think it was used to rip you breast. Sometimes they would try and soften the blow. They would say, ‘Hey, good news is you get to sit down. Bad news is you have to sit on this.’ [Shows a chair with a pyramid-shaped spike on it.] Yeah that was called the Judas Cradle. I guess ‘ass shredder’ was already taken.

Additional quotes:

Lewis Black: Greg you have been babbling on about the Catholic Church and you haven’t mentioned the pope. Do you even know who he is?

Giraldo: Ah, yes I know who he is, and the pope to me is a hypocrite in his Prada loafers and his ball gown. How can he condemn homosexuality when he dresses like he is on his way to nickel cosmo night at the Veiny Shaft Tavern?

And this:

Black: I read in Parade magazine that the Catholic Church is letting people use condoms now.

Giraldo: What did happen was because of the crisis in Africa, the Catholic Church considered allowing people to use condoms. If they were married and if one of the partners had AIDS. HAHAHA. A loophole. ‘Well we can’t have any more kids, we live on two bucks a month, and we are running out of mud pies to feed them. One of us is going to have to get AIDS.’

Creationist misinformation site Access Research Network has a brief blog entry called “‘Expelled’ Gaining Attention”. Although it was originally scheduled for a February release, their article indicates that this accidental mockumentary is now scheduled for April. They don’t tell us why. Maybe the producers needed to scrounge up additional funds to pay for all of the bribes they’re making to get people to see the film. They also write:

The blogs are starting to heat up over the film. Many of the comments are just ad hominem attacks on Ben Stein, or those rascally professors who think there actually may be more to Reality than material processes. Others don’t care for the tie-in with Hilter or the Berlin Wall.

That paragraph is loaded with laughs! Let’s take them in reverse order.

Let’s start with the Nazi tie-in. Fundies love to blame the Holocaust on Darwin. First of all, how is the fact that species evolved in any way to blame for Hitler’s gas chambers? There’s no connection. Period.

Second, eugenics predates Darwin. By a lot. Plato was one of its earliest advocates. Ancient Rome and Sparta actually put it into practice. In fact, Hitler praised Sparta’s eugenics program.

Eugenics had a resurgence after Darwin, but that would be blaming the man for the misuse of his discoveries. Isaac Newton figured out orbital mechanics, but we don’t blame him for ICBMs.

Eugenics was a misunderstanding and misapplication of what was then known of evolution. Don’t blame the natural scientists for the blunders of the social scientists. Your beef is with Sir Francis Galton and his cronies, not Darwin.

I also find it amusing that Access Research Network, of all people, would flaunt the Nazi connection. They threw a fit when I said they were using Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda techniques.

The second funny line in ARN’s paragraph is:

…those rascally professors who think there actually may be more to Reality than material processes.

ID creationists have yet to provide any plausible or credible evidence that their fairy stories have anything to do with reality. For them to claim that reality is on their side goes beyond laughable.

The third funny line in that paragraph is:

The blogs are starting to heat up over the film. Many of the comments are just ad hominem attacks on Ben Stein….

Is that true? I don’t know. ARN provides no evidence to back up that claim. That ought to be easy to do. Just go out to the blogosphere and grab a few quotes. (And if there is anything ARN loves, it’s quote mining!) But no! They can’t even do that! You’d think that an organization called “Access Research Network” would be capable of doing a tiny bit of research! Or at the very least know how to access some!

Researching the Blogosphere

I did get curious to see if the comments about this film are mostly just “ad hominem attacks on Ben Stein”. I shouldn’t have to do ARN’s work for them, but I decided to do a Google blog search on “Ben Stein”. Let’s look at the first page of results.

Of the 20 results returned, two were to unrelated spam sites. Of the 18 remaining:
5 were pro-Ben Stein (mostly creationist sites)
1 was neutral (and that was at Beliefnet!)
6 were financial or legal articles
6 were critical of Stein

That doesn’t exactly look to me like the blogosphere is “heating up” over Stein and his movie, but maybe quality is a better indicator of heat than is quantity. Let’s look at each of these categories in turn.

Full of B.S.

Among the articles supporting Ben Stein was a very short one by Jeff Doolittle. It contains this enlightening quote from Ben Stein himself:

In my experience, people who are confident in their ideas are not afraid of criticism.

I would agree with that statement, but that raises the fun question: Why was Access Research Network so upset about my article critiquing them?

Let’s skip the neutral article and move on to:

Financial or Legal Articles

Two articles in this category are very critical of Stein, but neither resorts to ad hominem attacks, as ARN alleges. Referring to one of Stein’s investment columns, Marek Fuchs of TheStreet.com writes:

I have seen a lot of bad business journalism in my day, but nothing as irresponsible and so wholly unsupported by facts. Actually, by even a single fact.

Wow. And economics is one of Stein’s specialties. Imagine how bad Expelled must be, since it’s on a topic Stein knows much less about.

The Big Picture specifically addresses the claims of ad hominem attacks:

I frequently mention that I loathe ad hominem attacks. They are a lazy way to avoid responding to a challenging argument. However, there comes a certain point in a pundit’s career arc where their credibility, intellectual honesty, and quite bluntly, their entire world view comes into question. Mr. Stein is at that point; he has jumped the shark, and it’s time for the rest of us to move on.

Stein, a former Nixon speechwriter, has made his opposition to Darwinian evolution public. He is ideologically committed to creationism and intelligent design, and is the star of the upcoming documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Once a commentator eschews logic and reason, once they deny science, then their readers are forced to question their entire analytical approach to ANYTHING — be it economics, markets, stocks, whatever. Ideology trumps facts, theory trumps data. For better or worse, this is the turf Stein has staked out as his own.

Ouch! They’re right. There is a threshold. Once you cross it, how can anybody believe anything you say?

The Critics Weigh In

Of the blog articles critical of Stein, “Ben Stein, Scientific Crusader” in particular caught my eye. It very effectively refutes, in a point-by-point manner, all of the lies Stein promotes. I can’t believe how good this article is. Hey wait! It’s mine! If the best that ARN can do is find my stuff, there must not be that many anti-Stein articles out there.

In a similar vein is an article from the Orlando Sentinel. It, too, rips apart Stein and his movie, point by point.

Travis Vocino calls Stein a “raving lunatic creationist”. The other articles in this category are similar. They refute Stein’s claims. Some of them also toss out the occasional characterization of Stein’s behavior. None of these articles was “just ad hominem attacks on Ben Stein” as ARN alleges.

We must conclude, therefore, that the blogosphere is (at most) running a slight fever, but it certainly isn’t “heating up” with “ad hominem attacks”. Not very many articles even mention the movie, and many that do mostly focus on debunking it. Poor ARN. Once again, we’ve caught them lying.

Appendix

Speaking of appendix, if humans were designed, why do we have one? Anyway, below is the list of 18 non-spam articles that Google blog search gave me this afternoon when I entered “Ben Stein”. I’m not recommending that you visit them. It’s just common practice in science to make your data available. This is another thing ARN knows nothing about.

Pro-Ben Stein (mostly creationist sites)

Ben Stein Expelled (Jeff Doolittle)
Ben Stein Civil Rights Activist (Darwinian Fundamentalism)
Ben Stein’s Expelled (In Light of the Gospel)
“Expelled”: A Ben Stein Documentary on Bias Against Intelligent Design (Children’s Ministry and Culture)
EXPELLED in Baptist Press (Uncommon Descent) (Given their practice of removing articles at will from their site, I’m not going to bother to try to link to it.)

Relatively Neutral

Ben Stein: The Michael Moore of Darwinism? (Beliefnet)

Financial or Legal

Ben Stein Must Be Stopped (Evolving in Kansas [Reprinted from The Street])
Farewell to Ben Stein (Big Picture)
The Ben Stein Pile-On (Portfolio)
Ben Stein Bats .500 (Skeptical Texas CPA)
Ben Stein on How Not to Ruin Your Life (Fora.tv)
Ben Stein is an Idiot (Silicon Alley Insider)

Critical of Stein

Ben Stein, Scientific Crusader (Bay of Fundie)
Is Ben Stein the New Face of Creationism? (Orlando Sentinel)
Is Ben Stein the New Face of Creationism? (Travis Vocino)
Orlando Sentinel: Is Ben Stein the new face of Creationism? (Panda’s Thumb)
Ben Stein’s Greatest Hit(ler)s (Amused Muse)
A Look Back in Time; Ben Stein was also an Idiot Back Then (Pro-Science)

What would happen if the Son of God returned today? That is the premise of The Second Coming, a British TV movie from 2003.

It’s the story of Stephen Baxter, an underachieving middle-aged video store employee who disappears for 40 days and 40 nights. When he returns, he claims to be the Son of God. In order to announce his arrival, Baxter alerts people via the internet. After all, if you read a wild claim on the internet, you know it’s true!

Unlike the lunatics who promote crazy ideas such as Planet X, Roswell, and Intelligent Design creationism, Baxter really is the Son of God. He lights up Manchester Football Stadium in the middle of the night with a column of daylight to get everybody’s attention. Then he tells them:

I know what you’re like. I’ve been you. Knowing there is great evil and doing nothing about it. Keeping my head down, giving a quid to charity, signing a petition, joking about it down the pub, but doing nothing. Even now I want to do nothing, I want to go home, shut the door and pretend that nothing is happening. But I can’t, because I was born the son of God.

The son of God came to you before and gave you a testament, but you did nothing. This time, there’ll be a third testament. A guide to living your lives today, and it will be written by you. In five days, I will be given the third testament, then we’ll start again, every country, every religion. And, don’t argue. All you Christians out there, don’t say “We were right.” Because I’ve seen what you’ve done. You stupid, stupid people. You’ve finally did it, I’ve seen it. Heaven is empty, while hell is bursting to the seams.

Naturally, this causes a bit of commotion. How people (and society) react is part of the story. Among them is Baxter’s skeptical quasi-girlfriend. There’s also the sub-plot of the devil and his plans to wreck the whole thing. Another part of the story is how Baxter himself reacts. He’s getting this insight from God in bits and pieces, so even he doesn’t understand it very well.

You might think that a movie with this premise might end up being some sort of Mel Gibson-esque heavy-handed morality play, or possibly some sort of feel-good “inspirational” tale. That’s certainly how Hollywood would have done it. Thankfully, the British are better than that.

As I was watching the film, I was impressed with the excellent writing and acting, but I harbored a quiet dread that the ending would almost certainly piss me off. As the ending started to unfold, I got apprehensive. Why was the one character behaving that way? It seemed wrong. The events continued to play out, and finally they were explained. Only one thought went through my mind: BRILLIANT!

Reading viewer comments on the Internet Movie Database was interesting. There is definitely a split among them as to whether the ending is any good. I suspect that may have something to do with the viewer’s religious and philosophical views. Certain flavors of Christianity would probably be unhappy with how religion is portrayed or that the ending is incompatible with their version of life, the universe, and everything. Some of us like the ending, because that is the way things ought to be. If only!

In the end, it really is a feel-good inspirational tale, but not in the way that most people would define that. It’s a very humanistic tale. Ultimately, it celebrates us as human beings, our potential, and what we can accomplish without crutches.

You need to find this movie. You can rent it from Netflix, Greencine, and probably elsewhere. You can also buy the DVD from Powell’s or elsewhere.

(Hat tip to loyal reader Ericsan for recommending this film!)