Evolution: faith into politics (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" has been rejected by some IMAX theaters in the South out of fear that it might offend people with fundamental religious beliefs, The Associated Press reported.

"If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Lisa Buzzelli, director of an IMAX theater in Charleston. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution."

About half of IMAX's theaters are in museums, planetariums and maritime centers, including the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, which rejected "Volcanoes" because of religious concerns but later announced it would show the film. The Science Museum of Virginia also passed on the film, citing not evolution but the "lukewarm" response of a focus group.

That a science museum would run from evolution speaks volumes about how our society is evolving. <snip>

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031781820835&path=!news!columnists&s=1045855935174

[Tux]

1. Stupid

"Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" has been rejected by some IMAX theaters in the South out of fear that it might offend people with fundamental religious beliefs

These people will bring down our society. Why worry about offending them? Seeing a girl's ankles is offensive to them so who cares? They need to have faith, shut the hell up, and leave us alone. If they want to live in the south, marry their cousins, and turn the local gene pool into a cesspool, they can do it as long as they leave us alone.

[LdyGuique]

2. I think you cut the article short and missed its point

But is it possible we are being taken by political manipulation disguised as faith?

The Virginia General Assembly can hardly resist any bill, no matter how loopy, that has the slightest whiff of appeal to religious conservatives.

Anyone wondering what Thomas Jefferson would think should read his Statute of Religious Freedom, which reads in part:

" . . . the impious presumption of legislators . . . have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible . . . hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time."

The debate continues over whether people are being wrongly denied expressions of faith in public places and spaces. But when science museums start censoring science, it suggests we must now tiptoe around religious fundamentalists in the most secular of arenas.

You'd expect that in Iran, perhaps, but not here.

IMAX and other media centers will have to find some backbone and make the ultimate decision on whether or not to succumb to the hysteria of the Fundies or whether their larger mission must remain "Freedom of Speech" to show programs that are useful to the vast majority.

[yellowcanine]

3. So if "many people there" believed in a flat earth, would they refuse to

show a film showing the earth from space? I would think a theater housed in a publicly supported museum would be required to make decisions based on the science educational value, as well as entertainment value, of the film in question, NOT whether it might offend religious fundamentalists. For what its worth, I have found IMAX films to always be entertaining as well as educational. Good science IS entertaining and one expects good science at a museum, not religious dogma.