Just in time for Easter

A Rock Too Heavy To Lift is almost completed. I had always intended this post to appear sometime during Lent. It's a reflection on Christianity in the vein of Theomeandering, but a little more challenging. It's a little - possibly a lot - heretical, and may easily get me disowned by both my atheist and my Christian friends. (I have both.)

I found myself writing an introduction to the post, almost an apology (in both the classical and contemporary sense) that was quickly threatening to become as long as the post itself. In the meantime I became aware of a situation that was getting my blood boiling. I decided that a cooling-off period was required for the post. I am not the sort to impetuously post in haste and then recant, redact, and delete later. I would much rather measure my words carefully, and only post things that I am willing to stand by in the future.*

The thing that's gotten my ire up is the situation with the Creationist propaganda film Expelled. The story behind this film is a long trail of deceit and treachery, which is unsurprising. Scientists willingly engaged in interviews for one movie, and then found their words edited and presented as "confrontations" in a completely different movie. I won't even try to explain everything here. I'll just give you jumping-off points to what I've read, and you can see for yourself.

Here is the post from last night that brought my attention to the current situation:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/20/so-two-atheists-walk-into-a-movie-theater/

P.Z. Myers, scientist, blogger, and outspoken atheist, was denied admission to a showing of Expelled last night. (Denied, it turns out, by the producer himself - not by the theater owner or manager, who would have been within their rights to decide who could and could not be admitted onto private property.) Ironic in part because P.Z. Myers was one of the people interviewed for the film that was not originally Expelled, and in fact his name is used in the promotional material. And ironic further because P.Z. Myers was traveling in the company of another noted scientist and atheist - who was admitted into the theater. I'll let you read his own account to see who that was:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

Oh, hell. It was Richard Dawkins. I guess these Creationist clowns don't watch South Park.

Read here for more of this movie's outrageousness. And see here for a follow-up by P.Z. Myers, and here for a review from his daughter, who was allowed to attend.

Now, I always have to wonder: how much of this is just a clever publicity stunt? Much like Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos", by engaging in behavior like this the movie producer has ensured that people will be talking about the incident - and the movie. The more people talk about this, the more attention it gets, and the more free publicity. Which is why I have at no point linked directly to either the Rush Limbaugh or Expelled sites. I will not feed traffic to them, to increase their hit-based advertising revenue. If you want to go to either of their sites, feel free, but I won't send you there.

*I am, however, perfectly willing to edit posts if I discover errors in grammar, spelling, style, or structure, such as the use of the word "later" to end two consecutive sentences.