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So I watched "The God Who Wasn't There" DVD for the first time tonight...
Posted on: August 18, 2007 - 2:37am
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So I watched "The God Who Wasn't There" DVD for the first time tonight...
...And it killed almost all of the Christianity I still had left in me. lol. The film did it's job. Bookmark/Search this post with: |
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Thank you.
It was a great movie.
Zeeboe, did any of Brian Flemming's comments at the end hit home for you? Like the part where he talked about feeling guilty for having doubts when he was attending the fundamentalist christian school?
The ending made me want to go back to my own church I grew up in and do the blasphemy challenge. (lol. I'm like a year or two behind everyone else.)
http://www.triumphchurch.com/
That's the church I attended as a child. Watching "The God Who Wasn't There" makes me want to go inside that church and do the blasphemy challenge.http://www.triumphchurch.com/about-pastoral-staff.htmlThe man on the left (Randy Clark) is the redneck bastard who made my Mother feel like it was her fault that she was being physically abused by my Father. I'd love to debate him now and destroy his religion, Rational Response Squad style.Maybe it was just me, but I could feel the hurt and betrayal in his eyes and voice when he denied the holy spirit. I know when and if I ever do the same, I'll feel pretty hurt and sad.I am actually glad the blasphemy challenge thing has died down, so that way if I ever do it..I'll be doing it for me and me only. Even though I'm not a teenager and I won't be getting a free DVD and even though it's an old thing now, it'll still mentally help me finally accept what I am now. (And no disrespect was intended towards those who did it during it's big run.)You're welcome. I've read before that you were involved in making it, and it's a great film. It makes my top 5 greatest documentaries I've ever seen. It's right up there with Bowling for Columbine and Super Size Me.
I think the film will be timeless and will forever change lives. Although I already know most Christians won't watch it. They'll say it's from Satan and refuse to watch it, but it's because they know it tells the truth and they won't want to live the fairy tale world they live in.
The Christian in me though does have to say that some of the points that were brought up are arguable. For example, from a Christian point of view...Jesus was not a very well liked guy in His day, so if anything was ever written about Him, it was probably destoryed by the Romans or Jews...and anyone who followed Him or preached His word was probably tortured and killed. Many of the early Christians were tortured and killed by the Romans and most of them held their meetings in private.
So it probably wasn't until just about 60 or 70 years before it was finally safe, and based on the research I've done...the book of Mark was written by a follower of Peter, who of course was a follower of Jesus...and Peter is the one who told the guy who wrote the book of Mark all about Jesus.
Yeah, some. But I don't think I've reached the point he is at now. There's still a tiny part of me that wants to believe. Sometimes I think I should just believe so that way in the event that I die, my family won't think I am burning in hell.
I need to buy the DVD.
Or, even more likely, because they didn't have access to Snopes.com back then, and because the story of Jesus was a myth, no one wrote anything down until folks started believing the myths.
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Not everything is black and white. In most cases, everything is a shade of gray and it might be the same deal with Jesus Christ.
The film claims that there were all these other supposed other messiahs who had the same story of Jesus, but in which order did they all come in? And how does anyone know that the authors of those stories didn't rip Jesus's story off so they could try to form their own religion and have it be just as successful as Christianity?
And finally, why do atheists have such a blind faith in history books and the words of man but have no faith or trust in the bible?
Now even if Jesus was real, that doesn't mean there is a God, and I'm not saying everything about Jesus was real. I think Jesus became a legend, much like Saint Nicholas who was later turned into Santa Claus. Now we know there is no Santa Claus, but there was a Saint Nicholas, so it might be the same story with Jesus. Jesus may have been a very wise Jewish teacher who preached about God and His followers (and later followers after His death) turned Him into something He wasn't and might have made up some extra stuff about Him in the gospels. Doesn't mean there wasn't ever a very popular guy named Jesus though.
I think that was the point of highlighting those other dying and rising Saviour stories, they predate the Jesus story as if it was copied from them.
Zeeboe,
Based on your above observations, you are now ready to read "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" - Robert Price. BTW, he was in the movie too.
Regarding your statement, "And finally, why do atheists have such a blind faith in history books and the words of man but have no faith or trust in the bible?"
I dont think atheists have blind faith in history books. Like science, it is open to revision as new evidence is found. Also, most history book writters have multiple sources to draw from to verify their story. They dont expect the reader to have faith in the story and to ignore evidence to the contrary. We don't even know who wrote many of the books of the Bible. They are mostly given credit simply based on tradition.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
I applaud the movie's intent, but think too much personal anger got through, skewing the result.
My question about Christianity has not come up in RRS forums (to my knowledge).
A historical Jesus (3-D, in a time & place) has never been conclusively established. Indeed, the Romans were good record-keepers; you'd think the execution of a subversive in their most troublesome colony would have been noted somewhere.
Messianism was popular at that time--many stories and apocalyptic predictions were in circulation. Also popular was neo-Platonism, which fused with Jewish Messianism in the Christ story [especially in John: in the beginning was the Word].
But to my question: why did this particular version take hold and rise like a rocket? Why aren't we up against the Church of Mithras or Apollonius instead?
I'm going to geuss because constantine became a christian thus making christianity the offical religion of the roman empire.