Saturday, September 20, 2008

Brief History of Disbelief - Jonathan Miller

In this first ever television history of disbelief, Jonathan Miller goes on a journey exploring the origins of his own lack of belief and uncovering the hidden story of atheism.




Shadows of Doubt




Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic.





Noughts and Crosses




With the domination of Christianity from 500 AD, Jonathan Miller wonders how disbelief began to re-emerge in the 15th and 16th centuries. He discovers that division within the Church played a more powerful role than the scientific discoveries of the period. He also visits Paris, the home of the 18th century atheist, Baron D'Holbach, and shows how politically dangerous it was to undermine the religious faith of the masses.





The Final Hour




The history of disbelief continues with the ideas of self-taught philosopher Thomas Paine, the revolutionary studies of geology and the evolutionary theories of Darwin. Jonathan Miller looks at the Freudian view that religion is a 'thought disorder'. He also examines his motivation behind making the series touching on the issues of death and the religious fanaticism of the 21st century.





Take a cool atheist quiz here

Check out the BBC atheist page here

More on atheism here

Other documentaries like this...

Flock of Dodos

Who Wrote the Bible?

Zeigeist

Richard Dawkins - The Root of All Evil


Evolution - Darwin's Dangerous Idea

1 comment:

Andy Holroyd said...

Many thanks, I've wanted to see this again for ages.