Documentary about Atheism – Those who do not belief in god
(19 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5)
In this BBC documentary film about Atheism, Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of the 9/11 terror attacs 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. So few representatives of atheism provide a compelling and earnest account for unbelief, let alone with the lucidity and intellectual vigor of Jonathan Miller. He is sincere and moving in this attempt to explain and understand the origins of the truth of disbelief of religious superstition and faith. This documentary is dedicated tho those who do not believe in god or are still searching for “it” and wounder why they don’t fint what they are searching for.
Atheism: Jonathan Miller’s Brief History of Disbelief – Shadows of Doubt
Atheism: Jonathan Miller – A Brief History of Disbelief – 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, because is not just a harmeless spiritual thing for the folks, it is also an utility for those in power to controll huge masses of people.
By the way: The image on top of this article is from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Movement.
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justme
This documentary is quite biased. i especially love the footage of old films depicting religious people as if belief isn’t relevant anymore. There is no scientific experiment that proves that God exists, but i still believe. I took philosophy to explore this issue further and i still believe. People believe for many different reasons.
Documentaries like this are malicious and dangerously polarizing. It’s very intent on stigmatizing all religious people negatively. This man has his own convictions about something that has no definite answer. Furthermore, religion is something that he has not genuinely tried to understand or experience. This documentary is atheist (believing in no God, technically) propaganda; it’s undeniably a belief system, and as such, there is absolutely no distinction from its religious counterpart.
There are said to be up to 24 dimensions that make up our physical universe, and we can only conceive of 4 of them (1 in time and 3 in space). gravity has been calculated since sir isaac newton, but we still don’t even know what it is or where it comes from. Yet this documentary presents a very one sided view that states it’s “lunatic” to believe in God. how come there were no interviews with any theist philosophers or theologians?
For me, God is Love. i feel it, but i can’t really describe it or quantify it. This is not to be confused with God is fair, because i don’t believe that He necessarily is. Everyone is different, and everyone will experience life differently.
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:11 amJulia Mitchell
In reality, no single religion could guarantee us a place in Heaven. In the end, what matters is how we a treat other people.`-`
May 24th, 2010 at 1:36 amMark Smallwood
This is probably the first documentary I have seen on this subject and I must say the format is very well done.
Contrary to the first post, I don’t think it stigmatises relegion negatively. It obviously has to show the contrast between religious thought and non-religious thought, but it is no more “polarizing” than any other documentary. By the very nature of the subject, the documentary must show how atheists perceive religion(s), which will of course be uncomfortable for the religious. At least this is just a documentary – in state schools today religion is still promoted (lords pray in assemblies etc), which is a serious breach of neutrality towards the impressionable children.
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:17 amChristopher Luck
Believing in god is Lunatic, plain and simple.
June 12th, 2010 at 4:06 pmLexi Adams
actually it doesn’t matter what Religion you may have, as long as you treat the other person right.’`’
July 28th, 2010 at 4:00 ambadman
Unless we can say with certainty that we truly understand the nature of our own existence, to be an atheist is intellectually dishonest. It would be more truthful and humble to call oneself an agnostic.
August 6th, 2010 at 3:25 ammonterayjack
Aliens dog
August 13th, 2010 at 1:50 amDavid
One has to be careful with Mr. Miller’s commentary he gets some of his facts incorrect. For instance Galileo did recant. Nor can he explain with all his intellectual aplomb why the best intellectuals such as Copernicus were religious or like Albert Einstein had an interest in God. What he can not produce is an intellectual equal amongst the atheist, ironically. Further, he makes the mistake of compiling all the religions together as one. When in fact the Catholics perceive Protestants as heretics and the Protestants themselves do not believe that they are practicing a religion at all. Even more so when Cicero is quoted it must be remembered that the Romans never considered that the their gods be real, it was always understood as a means of ordering the people. There was never a hope of eternal life amongst them nor did their gods provide love and caring for the created. Nor should it be ignored that like Christ and Karl Marx two people who are essentially at polar opposites Mr. Miller is a Jew and so is Mr. Christopher Hitchens another atheist proselytizer. Jews are a relatively small population on the planet who have had a remarkably disproportionate effect on human life. Certainly they are the chosen people, but it would seem some are chosen to lead one to God and others away. I am not impressed with Mr. Miller or Arthur Miller, they seem to be men who get carried away by their own chatter and come to the conclusion that suite their over sized egos and pride. For instance his conclusions on belief were wrong. Belief means to ‘completely abandon’, which one can do in the arms of God. However, he tries to make the statement that it is all an intellectual or imaginary excercise on the part of billions of people past and present. When in fact like knowledge to which religion is not devoid or unfamiliar in any sense, it is experiential. People who are religious have to know God, they come to know God through experiences, genuine experiences. Abraham through the voice of God, Moses through a burning bush and of course the Apostles through the many miracles and wisdom they have experienced while accompanying Christ. Recall the definition of faith established by that great Jew and former Pharisee St. Paul whose encounter with Christ was experiential and dramatic and would have to be to transform someone who once hunted down Christians with zeal. He said, “Faith is the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for.” That you will have before you what you have hoped in God for. People like Mr. Miller always believe that the religious are stupid but then adore those like Copernicus and Galileo and Descartes who never for a minute denounced their belief in God. He refuses to recognize that reason and ration aside man’s soul and spirit can be proud, (no doubt he is a homosexual and they have a gay pride parade every year despite that fact that pride is a negative character trait) and it is the heart of a man that decides his stance not his reason and rationale which he only uses later to fortify his stance on a subject. Mr. Miller said that he ‘believed that the Earth traveled around the sun’ but did not know this through his own discernment but trusted in the authority of another, (ironically this was established by Copernicus of course the cannon lawyer of the Catholic Church as well as a medical Doctor who treated the poor for free whose uncle was a Bishop.) yet he rejects the authority of others, namely the Bishops, the Magisterium and the Pope and most importantly, God Himself.
August 18th, 2010 at 6:27 pm