MovieChat Forums > The Voyage That Shook the World (2009) Discussion > Lying for Jesus again!?

Lying for Jesus again!?

posted 15 years ago by tlittle-1
3 replies | jump to latest

The producers of this movie, AGAIN, had set up a front to deceive the people being interviewed, as per the BBC :
"Phil Bell, CEO of Creation Ministries UK, acknoweged that his organisation established a "front company" called Fathom Media, because they were concerned that experts such as Peter Bowler would not agree to take part in the film if they realised it was an "overtly Creationist" production. "At the end of the day," he said, "[when] people see 'Creationist', instantly the shutters go up and that would have shut us off from talking to the sort of experts, such as Professor Bowler, that we wanted to get to."

and

“Well, it could be called deceptive. But I think, at the end of the day, I would say that more people are concerned about how we’ve made a documentary, that’s a world-class documentary, clearly with wonderful footage, with excellent interviews, and balanced open discussion.” -- Phil Bell

This is just what the producers of Expelled : No Intelligence Allowed did.

Is it a fundamental and shared innate quality that people of those religions must engage in lying just to push their otherwise indefensible points across.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jacques-blaauw 15 years ago

Hi tlittle-1,

Interesting comment you make. I researched the matter a bit and found the following document sent to all interviewees prior to their interview:

FATHOM MEDIA – DOCUMENTARY ON CHARLES DARWIN
Copyright 2008

Documentary Purpose & Intent

Our aim is to dig a bit deeper into the life and science of Charles Darwin and the development of his ideas. We are particularly interested in exploring the role of a person’s worldview and how that impacts on scientific discovery and analysis.

We plan to explain how the Beagle voyage came about, look at a number of his influences and show some of the subsequent years that lead up to the publication of Origin of Species. We will include nature footage, some excerpts from his diaries, and some historic drama re-enactment.

However the key anchor for the documentary will be the interviews, of which you are a part! These will really give us our story. We are approaching various authors and scientists to help paint a picture of Darwin’s observations, the conclusions he reached, and how they correlate with the understanding of science today.

As mentioned, we are keen to hear and present a wide variety of perspectives on these issues. We would hope the spectrum will include scientific views on Classical Darwinism through to Neo-Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium, design from intelligence and creationism; together with historical reflections on Darwin’s social era, views on his life and the impact of his work. We would also canvas opinions on his motivations, the scientific ideas of the time, and of course, his legacy.

We recognise that when it comes to discussions on Darwin and the impact of his ideas, there can be a high degree of emotional response. However, our intention as film-makers is to facilitate a balanced discussion between people who won’t necessarily share the same views. While it is not practically possible to offer interviewees any form of editorial control, it is our sincere intention to accurately represent the views of all participants and to employ an extremely high-standard of journalistic integrity in editing the interview content.

Finally, we are looking to craft a quality documentary that will sell to international broadcast networks. A documentary that will help viewers to comprehend and understand the seismic paradigm shift that resulted from Darwin’s writing.

Steve Murray, Director

Sounds fair to me. I've decided to reserve judgement until I've seen the movie.

CMI's resonse to the lying and deceit claims can be found here:
http://creation.com/the-voyage-darwin-film-defended

[–] tlittle-1 15 years ago

Wow, that's pretty selective reading there. Here's other quotes from the film's site :

"If people had asked us, we determined from the outset that the team would answer honestly, and we instructed the film crew that went to get the interviews along those lines. Of course, we hoped and prayed (literally, and earnestly) that such questions simply would not be asked—e.g. whether creationists were driving it.3 We wanted straight answers to the questions on these important matters from all, whether creationist or evolutionist—unhampered by prejudice and all the other ‘baggage’ that has accumulated, much of it quite unfairly, around the issue. "

So, they knew that telling the truth would likely doom their film, so they felt no compunction to do so, and in FACT, prayed to avoid telling the truth -- to hide their true intentions.

Later, they LIE on the same page : "Under atheism there is no compunction to be truthful at all. For example, an American academic boasted about how he deliberately deceives students in his efforts to get them to accept evolution."

Atheists have more reason to be truthful, because atheist don't believe that you can lie and ask a make-believe sky-fairy for forgiveness and everything is fixed. Atheists realize that doing immoral or unethical things are inexcusable, and they harm the society.

Then the makers use these as support for "lies" used by teachers to support evolution :
Forged Haeckel embryo pictures, still used in many textbooks
Staged photos of peppered moths which wouldn’t even prove goo-to-you evolution anyway but merely the creationist-invented theory of natural selection.
Misleading analogies that cars and airplanes evolved when of course they were designed (Intelligent Design leader Phillip E. Johnson calls this ‘Berra’s Blunder’, and Ian Plimer committed this blunder too).
Piltdown Man, an obvious forgery not exposed for 40 years, and the peccary tooth dubbed ‘Nebraska man’1
Archaeoraptor , the Piltdown Bird.

All of which are completely covered on talk-origins, so the producers are defending their lying by saying they didn't lie, but didn't feel the need to tell the truth, and that lying is bad even though they've done it there again and again AND THEN they claim the moral high-ground.

Sorry, but they've admitted to lying in the BBC accounts I gave in the original posting, then in the page explaining their defense, they admit to lying AGAIN, and then profusely lie again and again on each defending page.

I don't suggest that you not see the movie. But you will quite clearly see, in the movie, that their fair and balanced, review of evolution and so on will be a biased hatchet-job that must rely on half-truth, lies, innuendo and fiction.