evolution vs god

Evolution vs. God
Evolution vs. God….. Most documentaries are only a creative treatment of actuality and one person’s perception. To justify this statement we’ll question whose version of the truth are we as viewers being subjected to, since documentaries only create a synopsis of actuality and bias.
The purpose of this documentary is to position the audience in a manner of which would test their ability to question their knowledge in science by comparing it with religion. Evolution vs. God is shaking the foundations of faith by providing supposed facts, proof and interviews addressing personal beliefs about the topic of Evolution versus God. This documentary was made in the USA, produced by Ray Comfort on July 9th 2013, and filmed within the campuses of the most popular and highly regarded Universities in America. This informative documentary challenges social and cultural beliefs all around the world and is designed to stir controversy.
Throughout many centuries human beings have wondered the earth, looking for answers, looking for proof and observing every living thing for one of the most important reasons. How did we come to exist? How was the world created? This has been debated for centuries and so far there has only been two theories; evolution or God. Comfort uses a variety of techniques to persuade viewers to agree with his version of reality and truth. Using interviews, the Darwinian Theory, examples, facts and images, Ray Comfort exerts his disbelief in evolution and attempts to discredit the evolution theory. Using carefully selective interview questions and editing techniques, Comfort sets out to challenge the minds of scientific students to encourage them and viewers to support the Creation theory.
Evolution vs. God begins with a black background that slowly reveals the phrase [pause] ‘Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence’ which is quoted by Richard Dawkins. By starting the documentary with a text overlay makes the viewer think of their faith. {slide} After, the next scene blasts with an explosion of light and forms into the galaxy that then shows the heading of the documentary ‘Evolution vs. God - shaking the foundations of faith’, effectively gaining viewers attention. This introduction scene happens in 40 seconds. The inclusion of dramatic music; a group of violins creating a sound of tension building up, viewers are intrigued by both visuals and sounds simultaneously, creating an irresistible documentary.
Although the documentary doesn’t reveal its biased point of view from the outset, the producer cleverly decides to bring his opinion in near the end of the film. Instead he selectively begins with the opinions voiced from the large amounts of University students that major in sciences, Professors that teach a variation of different subjects of science and even gives scientific facts about the Darwinian Theory. He asks both students and Professors if they believe in God or Evolution and interestingly they all declared they were [emphasis] Atheists. (Comfort 2013) When interviewing people, Comfort films them in their environment, whether it be in the class room, in the cafeteria, sitting down outside the University or with friends/teachers, to enable the interviewees to feel comfortable and open about their opinion. In all of these environments the camera shot is level to their face and is a close up from their shoulders up. The effect is an equal and personal response with the interviewed people to allow the viewers and interviewer to have a deeper connection and understanding of their belief.
For the third scene, the camera stops filming and the screen is black and reveals another text overlay phrase; ‘Live Science says of Darwinian evolution: {slide} “It can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans, and amphibious mammals into whales.” (Comfort 2013). This quote is the basis for Comfort to use as he interviews people. In fact professor Craig Stanford is so sure of the Darwinian evolution he decides to expand his thoughts summarising that we don’t need to evoke any supernatural force or power to account for the development of life through time on Earth.
Another Professor Peter Nonacs says, “The ongoing processes is that they are observable in today’s world”. Comfort then uses this as a question later in the film. Meanwhile Comfort asks the students and Professors if this phrase is a belief or fact allowing them to give their opinion. 100% of them said its facts of science however the director / producer twists their mind and the studies of science by asking “What are some observable evidence that evolution is true, something that I don’t have to put beliefs into?”
The Camera stops filming the professor after Comfort asked the question and then another phrase is revealed; [pause] ‘A scientific method is based on “the collection of data through observation and experimentation” quoted by Science Daily’. This selective editing tie in with what Comfort is questioning however, his opinion becomes obvious, in that he claims everyone has to have faith or believe in something. The Camera starts again with the same Professor and he answers with “Take a look at what happened 65 million years ago”. Comfort, in a sarcastic tone, replies with “Hang on I can’t that’s 65 million years ago”. Comfort’s opinion, which is the dominant one, claims that these facts aren’t reliable because they happened so long ago and were observed through long periods of time and humans can’t live longer than 100 years. So many students and Professors came up with answers that were observed through thousands and millions of years which is not possible therefore objectifying more God. Some students and professors even say that there is none observable evidence through this present time. As the students and Professors were proven wrong, the camera zooms out more, showing their chest up. The camera angle is slightly higher than their faces which positions them in a weaker, more submissive state, encouraging the viewers to think [pause] maybe evolution isn’t as credible as perhaps previously thought.
That scene ends into and red and black background and two phrases that proves Rays perception ‘We are condemned to live only for a few decades and that’s too slow, too small a time scale to see evolution going on’ quoted by Richard Dawkins. The other phrase was ‘We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages – Charles Darwin’. Surprisingly still nobody could give hard evidence of an observable example of evolution so the students and professors stated that they [emphasis] believed or had faith on the evolutionary theory. Right at that moment Ray stated that everyone has to believe or have faith in something its part of the human nature, we all believe in something whether its true or not. Ray keeps on pushing the students and professors to rethink the evolution theories and the more they think about it they start to realise Ray has good point, while they think that piano music starts in a tic-toc rhythm and the camera angle changes to a lower angle to empower them.
The camera stops rolling and reveals the same phrase that started this documentary except this time it reveals the objectivity of Faith after he has explained his opinion {slide} ‘Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence’ which was quoted by Richard Dawkins’. In the end of the documentary Ray decides to reveal what he has faith in, [pause] God. The reason why Ray has pushed the limits of Evolution by representing God is because he is showing the different faiths that everyone has, not knowing 100% if it’s true or not. Believing something is true doesn’t in reality make it true.
Throughout this documentary Ray decides to use a sequence of sounds to help bring together the whole evolution vs. god experience. In the start there’s a quick build-up of violins that gives the views a sense of tension, in the middle while explaining evolution the music is slow and subtle and once the evolution theories start to collapse and the interviewed re-evaluate their beliefs a tic-toc piano music is played. At the end of the documentary a sort of exciting music is played with violins, pianos and other instruments to position the readers to feel exhilarated.
Now a days it’s very important in our social and cultural environment to have faith in something. Having faith in something is very healthy and is something us as humans do naturally. Some people may see this documentary and think that it’s wrong, for example for atheists watching this documentary are thinking that Ray is discriminating against their beliefs by testing their knowledge on evolution and comparing it to the knowledge he has in his belief in God. However, for the viewers that do have faith in God would glorify this documentary. There is no proven right or wrong religion, therefore, culturally and socially anyone can choose freely what they want to have faith in.