In little over two weeks, a new documentary named Expelled will be making its nationwide debut, detailing for the country how, as the film’s creators see it, “Big Science” is repressing proponents of Intelligent Design, a theory that credits an intelligent creator for the creation of life rather than the more tendentially atheistic theory of Darwinian evolution. Reviewers of the pre-screening for Expelled, both positive and negative, have made numerous comments about the film’s use of images of Nazi Germany in such a way as to represent the forces of “Big Science” and “Darwinists” as being similar to those that caused the Holocaust. As Ray Comfort’s glowing review points out, the maker of the film, “can see the same pattern in the United States that led up to Nazi Germany.” (Comfort) The conflict between Darwinian evolution, and the concept of an intelligent designer is one of many public fronts in the ongoing confrontation between theism and atheism, with theists supporting the supposition that supports their belief in a creative designer, and with atheists supporting the theory that attempts to explain the origin of life without the need for such a supposition. It is not unusual, in this conflict, for this comparison between atheism and Nazism to be raised as it is in the film, with footage cutting between notable atheist Richard Dawkins, and Nazi troops marching in formation. This implicit parallel between atheism and Nazism, however, is just the tip of the rhetorical iceberg.

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