Expelled

Last night I went to see Ben Stein's Expelled with a group of friends. I thought it was a good presentation and made effective use of imagery. I thought it did a particularly good job of turning Richard Dawkins' argument on its head. I was impressed that Dawkins was willing to be interviewed by Stein though and will give him props for that.

Of course, all of the critics will jump to the conclusion that this is just creationist propaganda in disguise. They are connecting the wrong dots. Intelligent design does not start with the Biblical description of creation and try to make scientific data fit into that box as creationism seems to do. I do not think intelligent design leads people to adopt a literal account of seven day creation as presented in the book of Genesis, or to the adoption of any particular religion. But if you do follow the logical implications of intelligent design, I suspect it may lead you to a moral universe and a power greater than yourself.

A commentary by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity is here very helpful in having a starting point in a conversation about Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

Ever since men were able to think, they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By once chance in a thousand something hit our sun and made it produce planets; and by another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the right temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of the matter on this earth came alive; and then, by a very long series of chances, the living creatures developed into things like us. The other view is the religious view. According to it, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for purposes we do not know, and party, at any rate, in order to produce creatures like itself - I mean, like itself to the extent of having minds. Please do not think that one of these views was held a long time ago and that the other has gradually taken its place. Wherever there have been thinking men, both views turn up.