Most helpful customer reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Questioning whether Jesus really existed, Dec 22 2006
The first half of this movie focuses on the question of whether the historical Jesus really existed. I cannot pretend to know enough about the history to tell you whether the film's version of events is accurate, but it most certainly is interesting. The movie goes on to explore the existance of god and religion in general.
This is a fairly low-budget, documentary style movie. You will not mistake it for a Hollywood blockbuster. Still, it is reasonably professionally done and you won't mistake it for someone's home movie, either.
This movie features an on-camera interview with Sam Harris, author of End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. The extras include an audio interview with Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. I recommend all five of those books highly. For a view from the religious side of the aisle, read Karen Armstrong, e.g., History of God.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It leaves you wanting more (like any great movie!), April 25 2006
Like any great movie, it leaves you wanting more...I've watched it 3 or 4 times and I'm still getting more out of it each time. There's a lot packed into this movie! I only wish more time was spent demonstrating the dangers of religious belief. There's a huge population of people that are sympathetic to religion because they think it's "nice" or it makes people "feel good", while completely ignoring the problems, not just historical, but REAL problems that affect our lives TODAY. Still, I give it 5 stars. What it set out to do, it did well.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Chip On Brian's Shoulder, Dec 9 2007
This film is an attempted demolition of some of the pillars of Christianity, set to dodgy techno beats and borrowed footage, both amusing and sickening (thank Mel Gibson for the latter) from Christian movies past and recent. The God That Wasn't There is however, not just a heretical look at the church, it's very existence was fueled by some serious chips on Brian's shoulder, regarding his Christian upbringing and the Christian school that tried to shape his world-view, and that story is also played out, whilst his perspective colours all aspects of the production.
I find the subject-matter very compelling, and was in agreement with many points made in the film, but a number of things bothered me, such as the fact that they brought in some of the most articulate critics of religion on the one hand, but then unfairly represented Christianity for the most part by interviewing randomly-selected Christians fresh out of a Billy Graham shindig, all of whom would have been torn to pieces had they been unfortunate enough to meet the chosen critics in a debate setting. The scary principal of Brian's school had a little more clout, but still was an easy target. It would have been bigger of Brian and his pals to find some Christian intellectuals or some similarly meek and ignorant atheist lambs for a more balanced take on things. I also felt that his assertion that Christians in the past were more devout because they acted out their belief by gleefully and cruelly butchering supposed heathens, whereas the modern-day Christianity is watered down, with no bite, is unfair. It is simply not as black and white as that, and in dumbing it down he is working at the same level as many a popular televangelist.
Many interesting points are discussed throughout the movie, the other christ-figures in antiquity that preceeded the character Jesus and came from the same christ-mould; his illustration of the flimsy and questionable foundations of the religion, for instance. This is though, a massive and complex subject to tackle, there are so many arguments that require consideration that weren't touched upon, couldn't be with time restraints.
It's worth watching, I reckon it'll appeal more to a young adult audience than anybody else. Reading intelligent books by authors on either side of the argument would be much more profitable, and I suspect that many folks exposed to the film will be inspired to do just that.
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