The God Who Wasn't There

Save your money and watch for free the same material but in much greater detail on the Internet by doing a search for the movie Zeitgeist. (It was on YouTube last time I looked) (Slight warning though - only the 1st Chapter deals with religion...the rest discusses 911 so at least watch it for the 1st Chapter)

I was disapointed in spending the amount of money for something that was done for free and better quality. I am at least grateful to Amazon because they had it for alot less than the films website did.

I am mainly posting this review with a nod to another movie because I think this topic is important to discuss and Zeitgeist does a better and more detailed job.

FYI - My account is my real name and does not infer anything

Being an atheist is supposed to be about reason. What's reasonable about making an assertion about a topic, assembling one-sided evidence and not giving the other side a reasonable opportunity to defend itself? The creator of this documentary lists a couple of Bible quotes taken out of context, interviews a bunch of laypeople to defend the existence of Jesus Christ and brings in his own carefully selected experts to support his position. He never interviews a SINGLE biblical historian, archeologist or scholar that may disagree with his thesis and allow them to present their case, giving the viewers a chance to make up their own mind. Instead he makes it for them, the exact opposite of what any good atheist should do. Being an atheist is about rational inquiry which requires critical thought, discerning examination of the evidence and balance. This DVD is anything but. Don't buy this garbage; it gives us atheists a bad name.

I saw a excerpt of this film on youtube, containing a well produced juxtaposition of two individuals, one a devout evangelical, the other a confirmed atheist. It was so profound to see the gulf between the two that I chose to purchase the film to see more of the same.

Unfortunately, not all of the film was cut from the same cloth. While thought provoking, with some excellent interviews, I was left with the feeling that this was much more a film about the producer/filmmaker and his issues with his education in a fundamentalist christian school.

The film did touch on several interesting points, but it never investigated these points at length, instead pointing to them and asking the watcher to take for granted that they were true. This is something find concerning, because the subject matter is central to the way our culture thinks and acts. I think the film would have been far better if it had stuck with an investigation of the early centuries of christianity rather than on the film makers high school years.

There is some interesting information contained in the film, however it is not a film I can recommend on its merits alone

I would make everyone watch this film if I could. It's scary how ignorant Christians are of their own religion. I used to be a Christian until I read the Bible. If you watch this movie you will know more about Christian history than basically any Christian you will ever meet. A few people who watch this may be provoked to use their intelligence and reason.

I have read a fair amount on atheist literature and found very little new material in this film. What prompted me to buy this were the debates on youtube between Sam Harris and various fundamentalists which I found very interesting, but I was disappointed that Harris' commentary in the film was not as insightful as other things I've heard him say. The documentary is filmed in a somewhat old school way that was slightly bothersome and the narrators voice is pretty monotonous which was a let down. Also, the documentary portion of the film is less than an hour long, which surprised me because the I had read the DVD has 5 hours of footage. I realized that the amount of information an hour long documentary can include is very limited compared to a book on this subject, so you're probably better off with the latter option if you want to learn something. However, if you haven't read much on the arguments against god then you might find some new tid bits.