Review of The God Who Wasn't There

Aug23 My Review of The God Who Wasn't There
Category: News

The folks over at Beyond Belief Media graciously provided me with a copy of their movie. In return I am writing a review on it. I stand to gain absolutely nothing in giving them a good or bad review. If I had truly hated it I would just as soon write it here. But I didn’t. I loved it. The movie made me think and at the same time scared the shit out of me. For some weird reason my computer ended up playing the Interviews part first. It had your typical question and answer session with a Christian and some atheists. One you might recognize was Sam Harris. Throughout the course of these interviews it brought up many new and interesting ideas. Such as the theory that our Universe is actually most perfectly setup to create the most black holes. Or the fact that 1 out of every 5 children born without modern medicine would kill their mothers because of the large head. Why would God make such a large inefficient organ as the brain? Don’t we only need souls? Also there is a discussion about comparisons between other mythical gods and Yahweh. What scared me is something Sam Harris said. We have people living with 7th century customs and 21st century weapons. How long until they use them?

Next I watched the original film. It outlined more of the history of Jesus and the like. It also included more bits from the interviewees. Essentially the story is this. Jesus died around 33 AD. People forgot for 40 years and around 70 AD the Gospels were written. This movie also brings up the Passion of the Christ. It shows how Christians seem to prefer a barbaric and tortuous portrayal over any other version. It includes a breakdown of the violence in the movie which is considerable. Or the violence of the Crusades. The problem is this is what being a Christian is about. Moderate Christianity doesn’t make sense. Jesus didn’t sort of rise from the dead, he did or didn’t. You either follow the whole Bible or none of it.

Brian Flemming also tells his own personal story of becoming an atheist. The one crime you cannot commit is denying the Holy Spirit. You do that you are fucked. Eternally. Really the Jesus myth is disturbing. If you hear aliens talking or deny the Holocaust you are deemed insane. Yet nobody dares say that about the religious. Hell the Christians can’t all agree with each other on facts.

In summary, it was a great and informative movie. I think if I was a believer it would have had an even more profound effect. You can purchase the movie at thegodmovie.com I have not had a chance to listen to the commentaries from Richard Dawkins due to some technical problems with my DVD player.