Business as Usual
I blogged about this "quackumentary" before, and, well, it's not like this ought to be any great surprise.
If he had known the film’s premise, Dr. Dawkins said in an e-mail message, he would never have appeared in it. “At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front,” he said.
Eugenie C. Scott, a physical anthropologist who heads the National Center for Science Education, said she agreed to be filmed after receiving what she described as a deceptive invitation.
“I have certainly been taped by people and appeared in productions where people’s views are different than mine, and that’s fine,” Dr. Scott said, adding that she would have appeared in the film anyway. “I just expect people to be honest with me, and they weren’t.”
It figures, and I know from what I've seen from Dawkins' own productions that he is very frank with those he interviews. Then there's shows like Bullshit!, where Penn has several times remarked that in spite of it appearing that some people who get ridiculed mustn't of had a clue of what they were in for, the producers are perfectly upfront about what they are doing and even provide video of past shows for prospective interviewees. Of course, this would be standard behavior for honest people not trying to con anyone. "They just think they're bulletproof," says Penn.
But when you boil it down, isn't religion, as such, just a big con job? Just like the State. Both need your sanction, support, reverence, and submission. The State can just take it by force, as religious institutions used to do before weakened by human knowledge of reality, not to mention its deal -- its bedfellow relationship -- with the State itself. Religious institutions are masters of the con. It's the only means of their survival now that they're foreclosed from running people through the torture chambers and publicly burning them at the stake in order to keep everyone else in line. Now, they just need to make fools of you and their success at doing that is as unsurprising as it is phenomenal.
That film is just business as usual for them.
Torquemada defanged the HRC without knowing
it at the time.
The printing press assured it.
Guantanamo will defang government.
The net will assure that.
Posted by: jomama | Mar 17, 2008 at 06:01