The film “Creation”, starring Paul Bettany, which is about Charles Darwin and his “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species, doesn’t have a US distributor yet. The reason is because the subject is too controversial for US audiences. I don’t understand it either.
Secular Left Posts
The Toronto International Film Festival arrives in September and it was announced the film picked to open it is called “Creation” starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. It tells the story of Charles Darwin and his writing of his book “Origins of Species” that introduced the science theory of Natural Selection and led to Evolution. It seems from the trailer that the story focuses on Darwin’s struggle to write a book that takes on religious explanations about the origin of creatures found on Earth. My only concern is that the film doesn’t have the usual “protagonist sees the error of his irreligious ways…” we see in films about people struggling with their faith.
Here is a clip of a 1939 Porky Pig cartoon about the Pledge of Allegiance. The interesting bit is that the phrase “under God” is no where to be found since it wasn’t added by an act of Congress in 1954. Our country didn’t implode when the phrase wasn’t in the pledge and it won’t when it is taken out.
It was announced on Wednesday that the board of PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) had voted to prohibit religious programing on PBS stations. I have already seen the faux outrage in the conservative religious community – the ones who believe the government should shove Christianity down everyone’s throat. What the truth in the ban is that PBS stations aren’t allowed to broadcast church services.
Some years ago in an e-mail list about Humanism, I made the argument that religion indoctrinates children to carry on the faith to the next generation. At that time, some on the list took me to task for using the word “indoctrinate” as if the parents and religious leaders were doing something criminal. I think religious training is child abuse just like when parents try to maintain that Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny are real. The recent documentary “Jesus Camp” proves my point if in a more hyper way.
Secular Left shouldn’t ignore respect
Having a blog can be very interesting sometimes, specially when a post is linked to worldwide and you get tons of visits. When a post of mine sees a lot of hits I follow the referral and see what it was that sparked the interest. Most times it doesn’t bother me because it is a positive link – someone liked what I wrote. This time it was negative because another person made claims about some people called “secular far left” and linked to a category on my blog implying I spoke for these people. I needed to respond.