5thJanuary

The Power of Inherited Wind

The play-turned-film Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes Trial in which a high school teacher from Tennessee is convicted of illegally teaching evolution in class. I saw the 1960 film version tonight for the first time and was struck by the profundity of the ending, which shows Henry Drummond, the defense attorney, deciding to jointly carry a copy of the Bible and Darwin’s Origin of Species with him out of the court room.

The message of this film’s ending and, thus, the overriding message of the film itself, seems to be that religion and science can and should coexist. This implies that religion should learn from science and that, conversely, science should tolerate religion. While Drummond is portrayed as an agnostic, his final action suggests that he believes that religion offers necessary hope to people.

However, another message leaps out in this film. It is that religion should not force people to believe or disbelieve anything, scientific or otherwise. In the film, Drummond questions the prosecuting attorney, Matthew Harrison Brady, and hammers Brady with questions about the reconciliation of Bible and science, such as how the Earth could have stood still without everything on Earth flying off and, more importantly to the case, how the first day of creation could be proven to have been exactly 24 hours if the Sun was not created until the fourth day.

This line of questioning leads to Drummond’s final question and final point. He asks why, if Brady can be allowed to interpret the Bible in a less than literal way, another person cannot be allowed the same basic right. This is the right to think independently.

Inherit the Wind brings to mind a basic problem with organized religions like Christianity in that they cannot force themselves on others and, at the same time, claim to be founded on faith. If Christianity, for example, could claim to be founded on science, then it could claim to have a legal right to coexist with science. However, because the basis of belief in Christian teachings is faith and faith precludes reason, no one has, or at least should have in any reasonable society, the right to force another into believing those teachings, either by law or custom.

3 Comments

The Atheist Messiah says 4th February @ 20:01

Reason has never been a weapon of choice employed by the religious to force people into pious and humble faith.
Aside from laughable apologetics from the smartest of the dumb theistic masses, ignorance and fear have always herded the flocks.
I’d say since the iron maiden, rack and torture in general have given way to a “reasonable” society, that
“unreason” is what is spewed from the pulpit to keep the sheep in a continual state of perpetual bliss.
If religion were a candle in the darkness, then science would be a supernova in your backyard.

The Atheist Messiah says 4th February @ 20:49

I’ve been absent from the atheistic community (if there is such a thing) for some time now. I blame a crisis of faithless faith. I guess I just lost my drive to give a damn about complete strangers who would rather kill me than listen to heretical ideas concerning reality.
I’ve moved from atheist to anti-theist.
In a time when the teeth of religion have been worn to the bone from chewing on the fat of society it appears the religious are even more driven to inflict damage any way possible.
I never really did give much concern for “survival of the fittest” concerning the religious killing and absorbing of the weaker religious ideologies and their followers or memetic competition or whatever you care to call it.
I thought religion was something that would die alone quietly in the night, but all religions seem bent on destroying humanity one way or another.
I wondered what your thoughts were concerning real dangers of religion. Your site has always been therapeutic philosophically and intellectually, but I wondered what thoughts you give to the myriad of real problems we have to deal with because of stupid-aggressive theists bent on legislating god into reality and forgetting about maintaining our current reality.
Otherwise, it’s all just mental masturbation and a never-ending compromise like carrying a bible and a copy of The Origin of Species out of the courtroom in an attempt at compromise.

The Atheist Messiah says 17th March @ 19:36

I’m jonesing for another great article from das uberkuh. I hope you find time and inspiration soon…

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