Darwin: The American Boogy Monster

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog ("Education, the Enemy of Religion?"), I found a story in USA Today that would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Creation, a new British film about Darwin's life, has been sold to distributors in virtually every country in the world ... except the United States. Here, in one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world, Christians are afraid of the truth.

This is not some flaky television show, or a blatantly anti-Christian propaganda piece. It is a top-notch story of the personal struggles of a scientist. Reuters calls it "one of the best delineations of intellectual and emotional struggle seen on film in many a year." It stars Paul Bettany as Darwin, and the wonderful (and Oscar-winning) actress Jennifer Connelly, who is Bettany's wife in real life, too.

In other words, it is a biography that should find a ready market in America, and would find a market if it was about any important scientist in history except Darwin. This is so ironic, that "father" of Evolution Science, arguably the most important, best-proved theory in the history of science, is the only one who is vilified by the religious right.

The only reason Evolution Science is singled out and rejected by religious people is because it disagrees with some ancient oral histories, stories that were finally written down by Jewish scholars 2,500 years ago, and declared "the word of God" by a self-appointed committee of rabbis around 2,300 years ago.

I sincerely hope that Creation eventually finds a market here in America. I know I'll watch it if it does.