"Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed"

[Whitney]

On a side note....I have not heard one person (in 'real' life) mention a thing about Expelled.  This either means that A) no one around here has watched, B) no one around here cares about it, or C) no one around here wants to admit they watched it.  

I'm actually surprised my best friend hasn't said something about it.  Maybe she hasn't heard about it since she doesn't have cable.  She's got a bit (well, a lot) of fundie in her and would probably swallow most of the movie as truth.  I hope she doesn't discover it, I don't want to have to watch it just to explain why it's a load of bs.

[rlrose328]

My neighbor wanted to see it but I think it's because she's still searching for what she believes/doesn't believe.  After several discussions over the past few weeks, she said she's pretty sure she's an atheist (or at least an agnostic atheist... LOL!) but then she forwards two religious-themed YouTube things to me with "very inspiring" as her comment.  Ugh.  I'm sure we'll discuss it more over the next several years...  

[shiver]

I saw the film and wrote a review on it for my college newspaper.

What did I think of it?

Utter crap.

The movie is basically an attack on Darwinism squashed between two patriotic interludes.  It nearly pained me to watch it.  I groaned nearly every minute.

It's funny to me that NOTHING about irreducible complexity (the only thing ID proponents have to say provides evidence for their "theory") appeared in that movie.  There was no clear explanation about what ID was.  

Ben Stein walked around the entire movie acting like he knew nothing about the world about him ("How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust?") for the sake of this movie.  It was quite pathetic.

Hooray for Dawkins, though.

[Ihateyoumike]

Ben Stein has ruined his career in a spectacular way. No longer will he be viewed as an intellectual, but rather a pandering buffoon. I wish I had gone on "Win Ben Stein's Money" and taken him to the cleaners.

"amen" to that.
I was under the impression that the guy was an intellectual. I unfortunately saw the movie about a month ago (off the internet, thankfully I didn't pay for that garbage) and was stunned. Going into the movie, I didn't know completely what the point of it was going to be. I hadn't read any reviews, or seen any trailers, I just heard it was about the ID vs Evolution debate. I assumed that Stein, being a supposed intellectual, would fall on the evolution side. Boy was I wrong. What a load of propaganda crap!

It was at least reassuring to see that users on IMDB.com gave this steaming pile a 3.7 out of 10 rating(at 5,902 votes), while Religulous has a solid 7.7 out of 10(at 7,428 votes)
That at least gives me hope that the vast majority of people who saw this realize what a load of garbage it was.

[VanReal]

Thanks for the basic summation of the film.  You didn't mention any interview with Behe, the neo-creationist whose work on which this film is probably based.  Did he have a cameo?  It is unlikely I will ever go see this film (cough-cough) anymore than I am likely to watch "Passion of the Christ" and I doubt many other people, other than Xians and the like, will either.  It will be interesting to follow the reception the film gets in the greater evangelical community, but I doubt pastors will be calling on their followers to flock to theaters to support the mockumentary.  Look, it's not going to be like another Amy Grant crossover hit to the pop charts....not going to win an Oscar!

Quick comment on the "Passion of the Christ" film. (And I know I am very late in this thread but thought this was interesting, hope I am not duplicating.)  I saw this when it first came out on DVD and watched with a few friends who are non-active Christians.  I was in tears through the entire movie and neither of them had much of an emotional reaction.  I think that movie is much harder to view for someone who does not believe in the resurection and instead looks at Jesus as a regular man.  To me this was hard to watch because I kept thinking about how tortorous and horrible it was to do this to another human being.  Not believing in Jesus as a God or the son of God and not buying into the whole resurection things makes it hard to stomach.  Those that think he rose days later and floated off to heaven really have an easier time.  Hmmm, kind of reverses the role a bit.