You know how the Creation Museum’s Ken Ham is usually full of crap? Every soundbyte coming out of him tends to deserve a refutation.
But, I gotta say, he was at least in the ballpark of sanity this one time. Might as well document it.
Ham was asked why the Creation movie about Charles Darwin didn’t have a distributor yet. Is it because so many Americans are Creationists?
Ignore his general anti-evolution rhetoric for a moment and check out his answer:
I replied that such a claim to me is nonsense. If a movie is controversial, I’m sure it would be shown — as it would probably get good attendance and make money. And if the movie was anti-creation/anti-Christian, would that stop the movie industry taking it up? Not at all — to the contrary.
Think about the movie Religulous with Bill Maher — an anti-Christian, blasphemous, and vile movie — but it was shown in theaters across the country. Also the movie Inherit the Wind, which was a Hollywood-distorted fictional movie about the Scopes trial that mocked conservative Christianity, was shown widely in theaters (and is on TV many decades later).
In fact, it seems to me that if a film attacks Christianity and is well produced, the movie industry in America would jump at the opportunity to show it to the public — if it would make money.
I told the reporter that it was my opinion that the producer was making the claim because he wanted to create controversy and needs the publicity. I haven’t seen the movie, but I have read a number of reviews — and it seems to me from what I’ve read that it is not really an exciting movie. Some have even called it “boring.”
Because it is a movie about the life of Charles Darwin, I personally don’t think that this sort of movie would do well in the theaters. I could understand it being produced for the History Channel or something like that, even though it could be called a “docu-drama.”
Like I said, he’s in the ballpark. He’s not yet on the field. He thinks movies like Religulous and Inherit the Wind are blasphemous… so he’s still opposed to living in the reality-based world. (Not to mention Inherit the Wind was against Creationism and not the entire Christian faith.) As much as someone of us would like to see a movie singling out Christianity, it hasn’t been made for the big screen yet.
As for the producer making a false claim about the movie for publicity’s sake, there’s no evidence of that. It’s speculation. And Ham hasn’t seen the movie, so he doesn’t know that it’s boring, either. But at least his speculations in this case make some sense.
Moral of the story: Even people who never seem to have anything intelligent to say have their moments.
And now, I suspect, this moment has passed.