Saturday, March 19, 2005

No Evolution for IMAX - Science Just Ain't What It Used to Be

Also from the New York Times, it seems: Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

Oh, Lord... All I can provide is some dialogue from the great play, Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, that deals with the infamous "Monkey Trial," that took place in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. The name Drummond = Clarence Darrow. The name Brady = William Jennings Bryant.

DRUMMOND: In other words, the court rules out any expert testimony on Charles Darwin's Origin of Species or Descent of Man?
JUDGE: The court so rules.
DRUMMOND: Would the court admit expert testimony regarding a book known as the Holy Bible?
JUDGE: Any objection, Colonel Brady?
BRADY: If the counsel can advance the case of the defendent through the use of the Holy Scriptures, the prosecution will take no exception!
DRUMMOND: Good! I call to the stand one of the world's foremost experts on the Bible and its teachings - Matthew Harrison Brady!
DAVENPORT: Your Honor, this is preposterous!
JUDGE: I - well, it's highly unorthodox. I've never known an instance where the defense called the prosecuting attorney as a witness.
BRADY: Your Honor, this entire trial is unorthodox. If the interests of Right and Justice will be served, I will take the stand.
DAVENPORT: But Colonel Brady-
JUDGE: The court will support you if you wish to decline to testify - as a witness against your own case...
BRADY: Your Honor, I shall not testify against anything. I shall speak out, as I have all my life - on behalf of the Living Truth of the Holy Scriptures!
JUDGE: Uh - Mr. Meeker, you'd better swear in the witness, please...
MEEKER: Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
BRADY: I do.
MRS. KREBS: And he will!
DRUMMOND: Am I correct, sir, in calling on you as an authority on the bible?
BRADY: I believe it is not boastful to say that I have studied the Bible as much as any layman. And I have tried to live according to its precepts.
DRUMMOND: Bully for you. Now, I suppose you can quote me chapter and verse right straight through the King James Version, can't you?
BRADY: There are many portions of the Holy Bible that I have committed to memory.
DRUMMOND: I don't suppose you've memorized many passages from the Origin of Species?
BRADY: I am not in the least interested in the pagan hypotheses of that book.
DRUMMOND: Never read it?
BRADY: And I never will.
DRUMMOND: Then how in perdition do you have the gall to whoop up this holy war against something you don't know anything about? How can you be so cocksure that the body of scientific knowledge systemized in the writings of Charles Darwin is, in any way, irreconcilable with the Book of Genesis?
BRADY: Would you state that question again, please?
DRUMMOND: Let me put it this way. On page nineteen of Origin of Species, Darwin states-
DAVENPORT: I object to this, Your Honor. Colonel Brady has been called as an expert on the Bible. Now the "gentleman from Chicago" is using this opportunity to read into the record scientific testimony which you, Your Honor, have previously ruled is irrelevant. If he's going to examine Colonel Brady on the Bible, let him stick to the Bible, the Holy Bible, and only the Bible!
JUDGE: You will confine your questions to the Bible
DRUMMOND: All right. I get the scent in the wind. We'll play in your ballpark, Colonel. Now let's get this straight. Let's get it clear. This is the book that you're an expert on?
BRADY: That is correct
DRUMMOND: Now tell me. Do you feel that every word that's written in this book should be taken literally?
BRADY: Everything in the Bible should be accepted, exactly as it is given there.
DRUMMOND: Now take this place where the whale swallows Jonah. Do you figure that actually happened?
BRADY: The Bible does not say "a whale," it says "a big fish."
DRUMMOND: Matter of fact, it says "a great fish" - but it's pretty much the same thing. What's your feeling about that?
BRADY: I believe in a God who can make a whale and who can make a man and make both do what He pleases!
VOICES: Amen, amen!
DRUMMOND: I want those "Amens" in the record! I recollect a story about Joshua, making the sun stand still. Now as an expert, you tell me that's as true as the Jonah business. Right? That's a pretty neat trick. You suppose Houdini could do it?
BRADY: I do not question or scoff at the miracles of the Lord - as do ye of little faith.
DRUMMOND: Have you ever pondered just what would naturally happen to the earth if the sun stood still?
BRADY: You can testify to that if I get you on the stand.
DRUMMOND: If they say that the sun stood still, they must've had a notion that the sun moves around the earth. Think that's the way of things? Or don't you believe the earth moves around the sun?
BRADY: I have faith in the Bible!
DRUMMOND: You don't have much faith in the solar system.
BRADY: The sun stopped.
DRUMMOND: Good. Now if what you say factually happened - if Joshua halted the sun in the sky - that means the earth stopped spinning on its axis; continents toppled over each other, mountains flew out into space. And the earth, arrested in its orbit, shriveled into a cinder and crashed into the sun. How come they missed this tidbit of news?
BRADY: They missed it because it didn't happen.
DRUMMOND: It must have happened! According to natural law. Or don't you believe in natural law, Colonel? Would you like to ban Copernicus from the classroom, along with Charles Darwin? Pass a law to wipe out all the scientific development since Joshua. Revelations - period!
BRADY: Natural law was born in the mind of the Heavenly Father. He can change it, cancel it, use it as He pleases. It constantly amazes me that you apostles of science, for all your supposed wisdom, fail to grasp this simple fact.
DRUMMOND: Listen to this: Genesis 4-16. "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the East of Eden. And Cain knew his wife!" Where the hell did she come from?
BRADY: Who?
DRUMMOND: Mrs. Cain. Cain's wife. If, "In the beginning" there were only Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, where'd this extra woman spring from? Ever figure that out?
BRADY: No, sir. I will leave the agnostics to hunt for her.
DRUMMOND: Never bothered you?
BRADY: Never bothered me.
DRUMMOND: Never tried to find out?
BRADY: No.
DRUMMOND: Figure somebody pulled off another creation, over in the next county?
BRADY: The Bible satisfies me, it is enough.
DRUMMOND: It frightens me to imagine the state of learning in this world if everyone had your driving curiosity. This book now goes into a lot of "begats." "And Aphraxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber" and so on and so on. These pretty important folks?
BRADY: They are the generations of the holy men and women of the Bible.
DRUMMOND: How did they go about all this "begatting"?
BRADY: What do you mean?
DRUMMOND: I mean, did people "begat" in those days about the same way they get themselves "begat" today?
BRADY: The process is about the same. I don't think your scientists have improved it any.
DRUMMOND: In other words, these folks were concieved and brought forth through the normal biological function known as sex. What do you think of sex, Colonel Brady?
BRADY: In what spirit is this question asked?
DRUMMOND: I'm not asking what you think of sex as a father, or as a husband. Or a Presidential candidate. You're up here as an expert on the Bible. What's the Biblical evaluation of sex?
BRADY: It is considered "Original Sin."
DRUMMOND: And all these holy people got themselves "begat" through "Original Sin"? All this sinning make 'em any less holy?
DAVENPORT: Your Honor, where is this leading us? What does it have to do with the State versus Bertram Cates.
JUDGE: Colonel Drummond, the court must be satisfied that this line of questioning has some bearing on the case.
DRUMMOND: You've ruled out all my witnesses. I must be allowed to examine the one witness you've lefy me in my own way!
BRADY: Your Honor, I am willing to sit here and endure Mr. Drummond's sneering and his disrespect. For he is pleading the case of the prosecution by his contempt for all that is holy.
DRUMMOND: I object, I object, I object.
BRADY: On what grounds? Is it possible that something is holy to the celebrated agnostic?
DRUMMOND: Yes! The individual human mind. In a child's power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity that in all your shouted "Amens!", "Holy, Holies!" and "Hosannahs!" An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes or, the parting of waters! But are we now to halt the march of progress because Mr. Brady frightens us with a fable? Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You've got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man behind the counter who says, "All right, you can have a telephone; but you'll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote; but at a price; you lose the right to retreat behind a powder-puff or a petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air; but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline!" Darwin moved us forward to a hilltop, where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this view, this insight, this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis.
BRADY: We must not abandon faith! Faith is the important thing!
DRUMMOND: Then why did God plague us with the power to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty which lifts man above all other creatures on earth: the power of his brain to reason. What other merit have we? The elephant is larger, the horse stronger and swifter, the butterfly more beautiful, the mosquito more prolific, even the simple sponge is more durable! Or does a sponge think?
BRADY: I don't know. I'm a man, not a sponge.
DRUMMOND: Do you think a sponge thinks?
BRADY: If the Lord wishes a sponge to think, it thinks.
DRUMMOND: Does a man have the same privelage that a sponge does?
BRADY: Of course
DRUMMOND: This man wishes to be accorded the same privelage as a sponge! He wishes to think!
BRADY: But your client is wrong! He is deluded! He has lost his way!
DRUMMOND: It's sad that we aren't all gifted with your positive knowledge of Right and Wrong, Mr. Brady. How old do you think this rock is?
BRADY: I am much more interested in the Rock of Ages, than I am in the Age of Rocks.
DRUMMOND: Dr. Page of Oberlin College tells me that this rock is at least ten million years old.
BRADY: Well, well, Colonel Drummond! You managed to sneak in some of that scientific testimony after all.
DRUMMOND: Look, Mr. Brady. These are the fossil remains of a pre-historic marine creature, which was found in this very county - and which lived here millions of years ago, when these very mountain ranges were submerged in water.
BRADY: I know. The Bible gives a fine account of the flood. But your professor is a little mixed up on his dates. That rock is not more than six thousand years old.
DRUMMOND: How do you know?
BRADY: A fine Biblical scholar, Bishop Usher, has determined for us the exact date and hour of the Creation. It occured in the year 4,004 B.C.
DRUMMOND: That's Bishop Usher's opinion.
BRADY: It is not an opinion. It is literal fact, which the good Bishop arrived at through careful computation of the ages of the prophets as set down in the Old Testament. In fact, he determined that the Lord began the Creation on the 23rd of October in the Year 4,004 B.C. at - uh, at 9 A.M.!
DRUMMOND: That Eastern Standard Time? Or Rocky Mountain Time? It wasn't daylight-saving, time was it? Because the Lord didn't make the sun until the fourth day!
BRADY: That is correct.
DRUMMOND: The first day. Was it a twenty-four hour day?
BRADY: The Bible says it was a day.
DRUMMOND: There wasn't any sun. How do you know how long it was?
BRADY: The Bible says it was a day.
DRUMMOND: A normal day, a literal day, a twenty-four hour day?
BRADY: I do not know.
DRUMMOND: What do you think?
BRADY: I do not think about things that... I do not think about!
DRUMMOND: Do you ever think about things that you do think about? Isn't it possible that the first day was twenty-five hours long? There was no way to measure it, no way to tell. Could it have been twenty-five hours?
BRADY: It is... possible...
DRUMMOND: Oh. You interpret that the first day recorded in the Book of Genesis could be of indeterminate length.
BRADY: I mean to state that the day referred to is not necessarily a twenty-four hour day.
DRUMMOND: It could have been thirty hours! Or a month! Or a year! Or a hundred years! Or ten million years!
DAVENPORT: I protest! This is not only irrelevant, immaterial - it is illegal! I demand to know the purpose of Mr. Drummond's examination! What is he trying to do?
BRADY: I'll tell you what he's trying to do! He wants to destroy everybody's belief in the Bible, and in God!
DRUMMOND: You know that's not true. I'm trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States! And you know it!
JUDGE: I shall ask the bailiff to clear the court, unless there is order here.
BRADY: How dare you attack the Bible?
DRUMMOND: The Bible is a book. A good book. But it's not the only book.
BRADY: It is the revealed word of the Almighty. God spake to the men who wrote the Bible.
DRUMMOND: And how do you know that God didn't "spake" to Charles Darwin?
BRADY: I know, because God tells me to oppose the evil teachings of that man.
DRUMMOND: Oh. God speaks to you.
BRADY: Yes.
DRUMMOND: He tells you exactly what's right and what's wrong?
BRADY: Yes.
DRUMMOND: And you act accordingly?
BRADY: Yes
DRUMMOND: So you, Matthew Harrison Brady, through oratory, legislation, or whatever, pass along God's orders to the rest of the world! Gentlemen, meet the "Prophet From Nebraska!"
BRADY: I - Please-!
DRUMMOND: Is that the way of things? God tells Brady what is good! To be against Brady is to be against God!
BRADY: No, no! Each man is a free agent-
DRUMMOND: Then what is Bertram Cates doing in the Hillsboro jail? Suppose Mr. Cates had enough influence and lung power to railroad through the State Legislature a law that only Darwin should be taught in the schools!
BRADY: Ridiculous, ridiculous! There is only one great Truth in the world-
DRUMMOND: The Gospel according to Brady! God speaks to Brady, and Brady tells the world! Brady, Brady, Brady, Almighty!
BRADY: The Lord is my strength-
DRUMMOND: What if a lesser being - a Cates, or a Darwin - has the audacity to think that God might whisper to him? That an un-Brady thought might still be holy? Must men go to prison because they are at odds with the self-appointed prophet? Extend the testaments! Let us have a Book of Brady! We shall hex the Pentateuch, and slip you in neatly between Numbers and Deuteronomy!
BRADY: My friends - Your Honor - My Followers - Ladies and Gentlemen-
DRUMMOND: The witness is excused.
BRADY: All of you know what I stand for! What I believe! I believe, I believe in the truth of the Book of Genesis! Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings-
DRUMMOND: Your Honor, this completes the testimony. The witness is excused!
BRADY: Isiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah-
JUDGE: You are excused, Colonel Brady-
BRADY: Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah-
JUDGE: Court is adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow morning!
DAVENPORT: Your Honor, I want to speak to you about striking all of this from the record.
BRADY: Haggai, Zecharia, Malachi...

AMEN!

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