Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture.
Super Size Me did it to fast food.
Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion.
From exposing the hidden history of Christianity to lampooning the bloody excesses of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (which caused Gibson to attempt legal action against the documentary), The God Who Wasn't There pulls no punches.
PLAY INSTRUCTIONS
- Click on the play icon on screen...a pop-up will open for poker or dating...close this and get rid of it.
- Click on the play button at the bottom of the player and film will start to play.
- ...enjoy!!!
More documentaries like this...
The Root of All Evil
Zeitgeist
The Genius of Charles Darwin
The Story of God
What Do Atheists Believe?
Buy the DVD, support the producers...
12 comments:
Thanks for posting this.
If you actually want to know anything historical in a rigorously researched manner, ie something serious, with thorough expert opinions and not some guy with an agenda and his selective research which amounts to a perfect waste of time, check the frontline documentary "from jesus to christ: the first christians" at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/watch/
and learn something, rather than this shady piece of work the aim of which is absolutely not to inform anyone about anything but rather some atheist rant. In fact in the first few minutes you'll notice alot of the material from this doc is mix and match, and "modified" to fit the message as conspiracy theory mystery muzak plays in the background.
I could have skipped the "aren't Christians stupid" parts and the equation of all Christians with wingnuts. But there are some solid points, attractively presented. The film gets nauseatingly self-righteous at around the halfway point. Ridiculous claims like history became "especially" bloody with the Judeo-Christian era don't serve much of a purpose, except to abandon critical examination of the earthly reality of Jesus and move into sweeping generalizations about a vast and varied set of religions, theologies, denominations, and practices. Christianity singularly bloodthirsty? Tell that to the Mongols and "Saint" Genghis Khan. I give the film a "C"...
The Paul section is very weak. In his letters, Paul makes reference to visiting Jesus's brother James, as well as Peter. If you can visit someone's brother, you probably think that person was alive on the earth. The letter to the Hebrews cited by the movie was probably not written by Paul. A far stronger case could be made that a charismatic preacher named Jesus developed mythical dimensions (miracles, resurrection, etc) with the telling and retelling, with many of the stories coming from older messiah/god/hero figures. You'll notice how none of the specialists he interviewed talked about the Paul argument.
Y, Lester, Estaban, and any other "critic" who might come along - I find it odd that the first thing you do is selectively attack the documentary rather than defend any of the accusations made in it...
The film is nauseatingly self righteous? Any more than any number of evangelicals who make equally sweeping generalizations about society and culture today while failing to respect any culture that is not Western based?
Lester and Y - Is it possible for you to address the fact that the "Jesus Story" has been told by myriad cultures using disparate figures for centuries before the so-called Jesus Story? Can you address that fact w/out repeating the ridiculous, "the Devil planted the story it in advance" conspiracy theory?
Just do that, if you can.
I am very curious to watch illogic at work.
The first part of the movie is wrong... The bible speaks of how the eath revolves around the sun... It was the magistates who didn't believe that the earth revolves around the sun... plus the magistrates who were keeping people from reading the bible so that they wouldn't have the truth. People don't actually read the bible. they just take part to come to their own conclusions about it... I bet if he read it in full context he'd have a different understanding.
D-Wil, can you read? I said - "a charismatic preacher named Jesus developed mythical dimensions (miracles, resurrection, etc) with the telling and retelling, with many of the stories coming from older messiah/god/hero figures." So, I agree with a central contention in the documentary (except that the producer feels the need to go further - and without any solid evidence - to argue the impossible-to-prove, a total negative argument: Jesus didn't exist at all). This film didn't open my eyes to the common mythic elements of Jesus. I've taken classes in New Testament and early Christian and Byzantine art. I'm familiar with Jesus's similarities with, among others, Hercules - early Christians would even paint Jesus like Hercules to underline the similarities. On the other hand, SOME of the arguments are silly - like the Paul argument, and there are equally stupid generalizations, as Esteban pointed out, about contemporary Christian practice. Much of the Passion of the Christ imagery could also be laid at the feet of white supremacist paranoia tied to US imperialism, the desire to justify (white) Christian vengeance and terror around the globe by showing a white Jesus being beaten to a pulp. It's clear that the documentary's producer had a terrible experience with fundamentalist Christianity (as did I), and I too for a couple of decades laughed at, scorned, and belittled Christians of ALL stripes... but that never convinced anyone of my smarts, morality, or humanity. I'm still agnostic, but like one of the commentators in the documentary, I believe that Christianity has resonance because of these mythic elements, for much the same reason art has resonance. There is also plenty of good insight, wisdom, and ethical challenge to us all in the story of Jesus and the early Christians - nothing definitive and nothing worth worshipping, but definitely worth considering and sharing. Don't be so consumed with sectarian, doctrinaire atheistic hatred of Christianity. Seek first to understand, before judging.
Thanks for posting the link to this movie.
Some arguments may be inexact or over simplistic, but the basis of the issue, which is that Jesus probably was not as presented in the Bible and maybe did not even exist, that he resembles closely other gods an heroes, that the Bible is pure mythology and that all too many christians refuse to have their faith challenged in the face of logic, is unfortunately all too true.
There were two biblical references that I looked up. I collect bibles and in the 6 I checked, the reference to Hebrews was wrong as stated in the film. Not "if Jesus HAD been hear", as shown, but rather, "if Jesus was still here" in all of my bibles. I'll check more, but I know the quote was wrong. Also, and worse, the part where Jesus says to 'bring those who didn't want to call him king and kill them in front of me' was a PARABLE about a bad king (from Luke 19:27), as TOLD by Jesus. It was purposely used in this video to mislead anyone who wouldn't go look it up. TWO lies...how can I believe any of it then? Thanks for putting those lies in there, so we could see the truth, but about the producer. I was almost taken in.
DDA
but mr.anonymous, does that prove the whole thing wrong or just that part?
btw i think your wrong about that, doing quick check on biblegateway.com i found...
(i paste 24-30 so theres no filtering or anything like that)
24"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
25" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'
26"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me."
28After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30"Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
The movie isn't there anymore...is there anywhere else to watch it online?
Um..I clicked on the "play" icon and was re-directed to some "megavideo" site. So...how can I watch this documentary?
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