Oh man, the more I hear about this movie Expelled, the funnier it gets.
The producers of “Expelled” spent two years interviewing scores of scientists, doctors, philosophers, and public leaders, including University of Minnesota biology professor P.Z. Myers, who does not support alternative theories of evolution. The clip of “Imagine,” which is audible for approximately 15 seconds, is used in a segment of the documentary in which the film’s narrator and author Ben Stein comments on statements made by Myers and others about the place of religion. In the documentary Stein says: “Dr. Myers would like you to think that he’s being original but he’s merely lifting a page out of John Lennon’s songbook.” This is followed by an audio clip of Lennon’s song “Imagine,” specifically, the lyrics “Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too.”
That wingnuts have held a grudge against that song for 37 years tells you how small their world really is. Did they really think the plebes could be sheltered from doubt in god if that damn former Beatle hadn’t penetrated the Berlin wall of religious censorship? Or do they really think John Lennon invented atheism?
The more I hear about this movie, the more clear it becomes that it’s patched together using email forwards.
37 Responses to “John Lennon invented atheism!”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
These are the same folks who think Chappaquiddick is still relevant and fresh.
They’re probably just jealous. “Where’s my rock album with photos of me and my wife naked on the cover? Why don’t I get a hott Asian wife*? Why aren’t teenage girls swooning when I go out in public?”
*Does not apply to Jesse Malkin (yes I know Michelle is of Phillippine extraction).
These are the same folks who think Chappaquiddick is still relevant and fresh.
They’re probably just jealous. “Where’s my rock album with photos of me and my wife naked on the cover? Why don’t I get a hott Asian wife*? Why aren’t teenage girls swooning when I go out in public?”
*Does not apply to Jesse Malkin (yes I know Michelle is of Phillippine extraction).
Whoops, I think I just posted twice. My comment didn’t show up either time. Many profuse apologies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if envy was a factor, and it’s worth remembering that the wingnuts have had it out for Lennon ever since his “bigger than Jesus” crack. And then he up and died a martyr’s death, ensuring that they’d never forgive him for overshadowing their god.
So, the feeling I’m getting about “Expelled” is it’s a filmic equivalent of Goldberg’s asinine “Liberal Fascism”.
Crammed full of “scholarship” that ranks a couple notches above reading cereal boxes, only got made because of wingnut-welfare connections, no merit except to line birdcages (the book), or use as drink coasters (the movie - on DVD).
Ridiculous propaganda and utter wastes of time.
I’m sure they’ll both be big hits with the Koolaideratti…
And I’m shocked, Shocked! that John Lennon, sacrificial representative of all things ’60’s is being twisted yet again for political and cultural propaganda reasons. No one could have predicted that!…
(Any word on whether any Jane Fonda references make an appearance?…)
I’ve heard speculation that “Expelled” was so amazingly awful, so ineptly made, so easy to see through, that it was actually an anti-creationist plot to destroy creationism and intelligent design once and for all…
To turn this back on the fundamentalists, many evangelical Christians will go to great length to explain how Christianity “isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Neil Young had no problem singing this song for the Sept. 11th celebrity fundraiser, and while he doesn’t identify himself as a Christian, he’s been open in interviews about believing in God.
Wow, I wish people would hang it up over this song. It’s just a symptom of more boomer narcissism, if you ask me.
heh. That’s what one get from dating a buddhist.
Wait until the fanatics figure out some other Betles song…
Across the Universe, (meant as peace chant, breaking the cycle of violence)
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fiona+apple/across+the+universe_20053679.html
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothings gonna change my world,
Nothings gonna change my world.
Nothings gonna change my world.
Nothings gonna change my world.
fiona Apples sings, John Lennon Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gLWTtlMwo4
When it comes to that awful, awful, Pollyanna song Imagine, I think I’m going to side with the conservatives on this one.
Not to mention that Lennon decided to be a “Househusband” for 5 years after Sean was born, or that he supported feminist causes. See “Women is the **** of the World.”
Jonathan, get a grip.
Imagine was neither a turning point in human history, nor a sign of the apocalypse. It expressed some ideas that were not new when Lennon wrote it, and other songs have said the sames things - some better, some worse.
It was only “controversial” because Lennon’s name was attached to it.
If Lennon had written Levon (“He was born a pauper to a pawn on a christmas day
When the new york times said God is dead”), or “Born to Run” (“In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream, At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines”), the wingnuts would be attacking those songs instead.
Ultimately, it’s just a song for god’s sake…
Yes, these nattering asshats are clearly driven by envy; that’s always been part of the fundie dynamic. Somebody famous (Twain? Mencken?) defined Puritanism as “the nagging suspicion that somebody, somewhere, is having a good time.” [ASIDE: Falconer, it’s a stretch to call “Two Virgins” a rock album. Imagine an album without a single listenable minute. It isn’t hard to do.]
And think what they would have said if JL said that ‘there is no god’ instead of saying ‘imagine there is no god’? After all his statement seems to be saying there is a god (after all you don’t have to imagine something that’s true).
I love cranking up the volume to play Imagine. It makes the tightwads in my dorm grind their teeth.
MikeEss, I suspect the cereal boxes have more scholarship. There are probably legal penalties for lying on them
Blasting the song “Imagine” to annoy the neighbors is an interesting image, to say the least.
It would annoy the fuck out of me.
Somebody famous (Twain? Mencken?) defined Puritanism as:
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”
Mother Avengers’ reaction to the cover of “Two Virgins” was non-Puritanical, she simply thought they both looked worse without their clothes on than with.
I always have to check my blood sugar after I hear it to make sure it doesn’t send me into a diabetic coma.
Well, they certainly didn’t look like virgins. Shoulda been called “Two Junkies.”
Weighing in: Imagine is a beautiful song melodically, but the words annoy me, as well. (I especially cringe when, after instructing us to imagine no possessions, he taunts I wonder if you can. For some of us it’s not so taxing an exercise, John.) There are several great, great songs on the same-titled album, however.
I always liked Rolling Stones’s one-sentence review of “Two Virgins”: “John Lennon isn’t Jewish.”
@ Falconer:
I think that any measure of “hott” has to include “not batshit crazy,” or at the very least, “batshit crazy in a much more interesting way than Michelle Malkin.” I don’t care what physical attributes a person has or what cool kinky tricks they know, if their entire intellectual activity is devoted to repackaging racist and sexist talking points for the G.O.P., I’m going elsewhere.
But seriously, it really is interesting to see how obsessively the right-wing focuses on a few archaic symbols of the 1960’s. I mean, it’s like punk and rap never even happened for these people. Don’t they get their fair share of the credit for destroying western civilization? Long hair on boys and rocknroll are nonissues for most of us who have the Internet and live in the 21st century.
As Amanda pointed out very well in her recent post on Mad Men, the reason the manufactured social order of the fifties turned into the rebellion and insurgencies of the sixties was that it collapsed on its own. Not just in a few places, undermined by comsymps and perverts, but everywhere. The contradictions became obvious in the lives of poor blacks and affluent whites alike, and everyone cut loose, looking to rebuild something new. We can’t go back to that. Sooner or later, the dishonesty of the right’s rhetoric, in blaming all the ills of the world either on Darwin or the Beatles will become obvious even to its own members. I think that the viewpoint that Ben Stein is trying to sell is itself unsustainable, and the only way that it can remain a meaningful force is to gain complete hegemony. For them to get that would be more terrifying than I can say.
My favorite line form Imagine is ,”above us only sky.” which is a firm declaration of Atheism and has even been adopted as an atheist slogan
Keith,
John Lennon was far from an atheist — he was a consulter of soothsayers, thrower of I-Ching coins, devotee of numerology, and a man who squared his schedule with the astrological omens. In short, he was a flaky New-Ager-type dude.
That said, I doubt he’d object to providing a slogan for atheists.
@Keith, 22: “Above us only sky” is also the official slogan of John Lennon Memorial Airport
Godmonkey - I’d say Lennon was an atheist, just one who happens to make me cringe a bit. That he apparently* believed a bunch of random feel-good junk doesn’t make the fact that he was “without god” any less true — just confusing. I mean, you’re able to see through the god bullshit but not astrology!? I won’t be revoking his atheist membership card yet, but jeez!
*I thought all of that new age-y crap was just a phase and he eventually got over it, but I’m open to the idea that I just told myself that because it made my non-relationship with John Lennon less awkward. I don’t know a whole lot about him, really.
I’ve been a bit mystified at how “Imagine” got to be so popular in the last few years on mainstream entertainment outlets. People who would not admit to being atheist marvel and go goo goo over the message of universal peace without recognizing the obvious atheism of the song. The conservative wingnuts may be more upset with the idea of “no countries” since world government is the bogeyman to them.
Ben Stein may the the conservatives Michael Moore. When I watched Farenheit 9/11 I laughed my ass off. It was so obviously distorted propaganda but still fed my bias against Bush I couldn’t help but enjoy it.
So, the feeling I’m getting about “Expelled” is it’s a filmic equivalent of Goldberg’s asinine “Liberal Fascism”.
The trouble is that pro-evolution propaganda just doesn’t work. try to imagine a hard-hitting, soul-stirring documentary, say on the development and evolutionary advantages of oxygen-extracting mechanisms in early sea creatures - “Triumph of the Gill”…
My 13 year old son is a budding military historian and pacifist (and no these are not contradictory). He first heard “Imagine” this year during his language arts class. He was so moved by the words that he asked me to buy it for him.
Yes, the words may be Pollyanna-ish, but to a young, idealist atheist, the words are very inspiring. Too bad the world is still so far away from that.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if envy was a factor, and it’s worth remembering that the wingnuts have had it out for Lennon ever since his “bigger than Jesus” crack. And then he up and died a martyr’s death, ensuring that they’d never forgive him for overshadowing their god.”
Amanda spoke to me! *fanboi silence*
“Well, they certainly didn’t look like virgins. Shoulda been called “Two Junkies.”
And how should two virgins look?
“Triumph of the Gill”
you’ve been saving that for a while, just waiting for a chance to use it.
Guilty as charged, K.
“Crammed full of “scholarship” that ranks a couple notches above reading cereal boxes, ”
Back in ‘64, Hofstadter noted in his famous essay on “the paranoid style in American politics, that
“A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates :evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it. . . .
The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent—in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world. It is nothing if not scholarly in technique. McCarthy’s 96-page pamphlet, McCarthyism, contains no less than 313 footnote references, and Mr. Welch’s incredible assault on Eisenhower, The Politician, has one hundred pages of bibliography and notes. The entire right-wing movement of [that] time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes, and bibliographies. Sometimes the right-wing striving for scholarly depth and an inclusive world view has startling consequences: Mr. Welch, for example, has charged that the popularity of Arnold Toynbee’s historical work is the consequence of a plot on the part of Fabians, “Labour party bosses in England,” and various members of the Anglo-American “liberal establishment” to overshadow the much more truthful and illuminating work of Oswald Spengler.”
- A lot in common, but what’s also striking is how badly the creationist movement and associated rightwing causes stack up against postwar McCarthyite ranters and John Birchers: a “touching concern for factuality” decays into an utter disregard for it, while (unquestionably bizarre) references to British Fabians are replaced by snippets of music from British Beatles to underline a far more banal bit of conspiracy-mongering.
——-
“Triumph of the Gill”
{Appreciative groans}
If I may quote Elvis Costello for a moment:
“Was it a millionaire who said ‘Imagine no possessions’?”
You can hear the whole song on YouTube if you’re so inclined.
PiaToR: The trouble is that pro-evolution propaganda just doesn’t work.
I found “The World Without Us” quite effective in this regard.
Lennon clearly saw through the Bullshit That Is Religion, but he was — ugh — a “spiritualist” right up there with William Freakin’ Butler Yeats. Maharishi was only a phase, but the rest of it was a constant presence in his life. He was frequently prone to bouts of disillusionment, however:
God is a concept
By which we can measure
Our pain.
I’ll say it again:
God is a concept
By which we can measure
Our
Pain.
I don’t believe in magic!
I don’t believe in I-ching!
I don’t believe in the Bible!
I don’t believe in Tarot!
I don’t believe in Hitler!
I don’t believe in Jesus!
I don’t believe in Kennedy!
I don’t believe in Buddha!
I don’t believe in mantra!
I don’t believe in Gita!
I don’t believe in yoga!
I don’t believe in kings!
I don’t believe in Elvis!
I don’t believe in Zimmerman!
I don’t believe in Beatles!
I just believe
In me.
Yoko and me —
And that’s reality.
The dream is over.
What can I say?
The dream is over,
Yesterday.
Consider that he later recorded covers of Elvis songs, socialized with Zimmerman (Dylan) and made decisions based on Tarot readings. Complex chap like most of us, only signifiicantly more talented.
Provided you completely overlook almost all of David Attenborough’s work…
Sheesh. You make one simple line setting up a pun, and suddenly everybody’s a critic!