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Intelligent design and popular culture: Uncool film wins in Toronto

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Of a recent indie anti-abortion film, Robert Novak writes,

“Bella” was conceived by three young Mexican men — producer, director and lead actor — who are conservative Catholics and want to make movies removed from Hollywood’s movie culture of sex and violence. Bankrolled by a wealthy Catholic family from Philadelphia, they shot the film in 24 days in New York City.

The star is Eduardo Verastegui, a Mexican heartthrob as a lead performer in TV soap operas who now lives in Los Angeles. A devout Catholic, he told me he was tired of movies showing Latinos as disreputable and immoral . He has learned to speak English in three years well enough to play the lead role mostly in English (with subtitles over the Spanish).

It was a stretch to get “Bella” even shown at Toronto, much less win an award. “Going into the festival,” said the Hollywood Reporter, “absolutely no one, including the team of filmmakers that made ‘Bella,’ ever imagined it would capture the People’s Choice Award, voted on by festival audiences.”

Materialists, it seems, cannot count on the support of the public, not even in secular Toronto. Give the people a vote and everything’s lost. Hence the importance, to the materialist, of indoctrinating students at public expense in the school systems and suppressing dissent at the universities.

Re this film, the key question is, Novak asks, will the film actually be shown in US theatres. Note, he did NOT ask, would US audiences like it? The question he raises is, will they be allowed by the Hollywood-based distribution system to see it? (Of course, there is always DVD. Can’t remember the last time I watched a show in a theatre, but it may have been at the Smithsonian.) I would love to help write the screenplay for a film about the ID community.

I write this because I get pestered now and then by media Darwinoids who want to write some silly and valueless “expose” of the ID folk, to reassure their materialist clients that all is well – when nothing is well. And they want my help when I have no help to give them - unless they want to confront the issues. But what they all actually want to do is explain them away. And that will wash no more.

Darwinism is fronted, by law, in school systems because it is the creation story of materialism.  It started out as a respectable theory of how species might change from one into another over time. Might be right, might be wrong. But it simply CANNOT bear the weight that is now placed on it, to explain why everything is the way it is.

Any media source that cannot deal with what is really happening here just isn’t where the action is, no matter how many tattoos the journo sports or how many different kind of drugs he does. 

Comments
Denise, "I would love to help write the screenplay for a film about the ID community." If you do, can I have a cameo, as myself?Douglas
December 1, 2006
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haha, thanks Michaels7. I don't know what to classify my music as...definitely hip-hop, but I include lots of different elements. And as always, the lyrics must be intentionally designed to get my point across and make people think. With all the bias against ID, I figured I'd show people directly that I support it and how it make more sense than alternative theories. Hopefully the kids will think it is cool.Atom
December 1, 2006
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Choice means the choice not to have an abortion, as well. Someone close to me consciously made that decision with her husband despite the possibility of severe health problems in her child. They both have all of my support. For that matter, the film sounds intriguing, and I’m interested in seeing it, and I certainly don’t sanction censorship, particularly not of independent films. BTW, I hate shopping malls and popular Hollywood films for the same reasons that have been mentioned by Denyse in previous posts. Despite living near a rail line to the Mall of America I never go there. I’m more inclined to have my nose in a book. Against all gender stereotypes I hate shopping (except for books). One of my favorite films is a sleeper-gem called “Jesus of Montreal” (though it is in French, be warned). So who are these awful materialists, because I apparently am not one despite being an atheist Darwinian. (???) Who are they then, if not me? Does the film mention ID? Who—and what—is this about? (BTW partying like it’s 1999 in the face of global warning sounds pretty materialistic to me, though I realize that was said as a joke. I certainly hope that Professor Lovelock is wrong. His prediction sounds like hyperbole, but I also consider global warming to be a very serious issue in opposition to others who post here.)kharley471
December 1, 2006
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Atom, I published part of those song lyrics here before. You got talent kid :) Explosive, energetic and boldly in-your-face lyrics that are thought-provoking for youth culture today looking up to rap and hip hop poppers. What do you consider your music to be? Industrial techno-rap? Pure form? I don't keep up with the music scene like I use to. Smiles.... revelation rap?Michaels7
December 1, 2006
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I don't understand how this went from a conversation about an "anti-abortion film" to how Darwinoids suppress "dissent." I do realize that Hollywood has it's own agenda, and this agenda tends to be quite liberal... but what does that have to do with whether evolution is good science or not? "If Darwinism–and by extention, materialism–were REALLY true it would not only stand up to dissent..." Evolution has stood up to dissent and it does encourage critical thought. When, however, the criticism is not warranted and has been repeatedly refuted, scientists get quite tired of the same old arguments. "...it would actually encourage the skeptics among us to voice our concerns." If your "concerns" about the science of evolution are legitimate, they are more than welcome. If, however, you want to conflate evolution with materialism, your "concerns" will be mocked by the Darwinoids. Don't attack them with arguments about Hollywood being liberal, attack them with empirical evidence.cdf
December 1, 2006
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I seriously doubt such a film would get much play time here in the U.S., if any. The film industry is simply too inured with the "abortion is choice" mindset, among other leftist themes. I watched for the first--and last--time an episode of the new NBC series "Studio 60" the other day, in which one of the characters asserted, quite straight-faced and sincerely, that Hollywood isn't really run by liberals. Uh-huh. As a far wiser man than I once put it, you know the tree by the fruit it bears. And if that fruit is persistently of the sort that tells me that abortion is choice, that Republicans are evil, that capitalism exploits the poor, or that Jerry Falwell is a bigger threat to freedom than Osama bin Laden, anyone who tells me that the reality is not what it seems is either lying to me or lying to himself. Likewise, if the fruit of Darwinism is (and, yes, it is), among other splendors, the Eugenics movement and the Holocaust, I am of the sort to think that Darwinism is bad--and most likely untrue. But there are those among us who want to perpetuate the lie that Darwinism is scientific--and true. They seek to teach that lie in our schools as a fact, and even expect our courts to enforce not only that the lie be taught but to silence any dissent. If Darwinism--and by extention, materialism--were REALLY true it would not only stand up to dissent, it would actually encourage the skeptics among us to voice our concerns. It doesn't--which tells me all I really need to know about it.TerryL
December 1, 2006
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More ID Pop-culture: Achilles by Atom tha Immortal
We strike Achilles at his heel/ We strike the modern man like Gregor Mendel, meddling with his alleles/ Wounds of Darwinian Theory will never heal/ Once the population finds Intelligent Design/ Enzymes hold the signs of a Divine Mind/ Darwinian speculation is useless/ To explain emergence/ Of cellular machines below the surface/ Seeing Specified Complexity points to a purpose/ Of a system of integrated parts/ Excluding chance as part/ Of how it could ever start/ So/ I speak with truth and in reason/ But whether you believe or not/ We leave Darwinian fish bleeding/
See also: Acropolis
...You worship false methodology/ Making a hidden tautology/ Into a pillar of biology/ Mankind didn't result from random astronomy/ But from a process of Intelligent Teleology/ ..The bridge, between science, thought and Theology/
Atom
December 1, 2006
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Film critic Michael Medved has said many times that "R" rated films do worse financially for the "R" rating. The less (gratuitous) sex and violence in a film, the more money it makes. http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/07/news/newsmakers/dove_movies/index.htm At least with the movie business we're dealing with market entrepreneurs, so we can buy movie tickets or stay home. Darwinists, on the other hand, are largely "political entrepreneurs" who suckle at the government teet, so it's very difficult for the average person to vote with his or her wallet.russ
December 1, 2006
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You are on a roll, Denyse. Two great ones in a row.tribune7
December 1, 2006
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