There is an amusing little tale in Flavius Josephus' "Against Apion" about an ancient Egyptian superstition. A Jew is traveling with some Egyptians who suddenly stand still upon the sight of a particular bird descending on a tree. Their belief demands that they stand still as long as the bird remains perched on the tree branch. The bird is supposed to be able to foresee the future. Then the Jew shoots the bird and says: "If this bird can foresee the future, why did it come here, for then it must have known I was going to kill it." I get the same feeling from this film. I generally take an optimistic view and when something appears to be less than positive, go out of my way to find something good in it. So how come I think this film is about the worst example of pseudo-science and pseudo-religion; degrading, misrepresenting and insulting both science and religion if my thoughts influence my perception and reality? The entire film is going nowhere. The opening animation suggests a parody on new age attempts to fuse science and religion in a rather unwholesome way. Then it switches to documentary style. Very soon it becomes clear that the science presented is anything but groundbreaking. The double slit experiment is hardly new. Concepts of science are thrown around without explaining them. I'm not a scientist so I do not know what a Bose-Einstein condensate is and from my scientifically trained friends I heard that Schrödinger equations are difficult to understand even for them. So let's switch to my field of training: theology/psychology. That's when I felt like stopping the DVD in disgust. People are victims because they think they are victims? Try selling that to someone dying of hunger in Darfur! This is anything but spiritual and a very convenient way to avoid responsibility. It goes even further in degrading religion. The old worn out cliché of God as a big daddy up in the sky keeping score and Jezus as big brother placating big daddy for us is brought up again. "Many" Christians believe this, it is said. Well, I sure don't and how many is many anyway? The interpretation of Genesis is even worse. If this is the standard for both religion and science, I can wholeheartedly understand the scientific criticism on this film It's teeming with logical fallacies. So after the snowflake nonsense I was ready to stop watching this film and label it new age baloney and possibly harmful to the uneducated and uncritical. Trying to find some good, I switched to another perspective. Could this be the depiction of the thought processes of a depressed photographer, trying to make sense of life after being hurt in marriage, her mind clouded by negative thoughts and tranquilizers? In the second part of the film it seemed to go that way. But then the film abruptly ends with Dr. Quantum giving a demonstration of "flatlanders". That book was written in the 19th century! Verdict: 3/10 (some of it was amusing) unimaginative, uninspiring, shallow, containing some truths, some half-truths and a lot of unsound thinking, degrading both the glory of science and God. A better tale can be made out of this. For instance: our unity can easily be demonstrated by showing the evolution of the universe. Our peptides are made of atoms created in stars and flung into space when these stars became (super)nova. I don't need grossly misinterpreted quantum physics to understand that were are all united. The oxygen I breath to maintain the life in my cells is produced by algae in the ocean and trees on land. In turn I breath out carbon-dioxide to feed the trees. This is classical biology and enough to make me gasp with awe and wonder. Move out into space in your imagination and look at the planet. Can you see boundaries separating the landmasses into countries?
