User Reviews

Film: The God Delusion Genre: Documentary Rating: 4/5 Director: Russell Barnes Writer: Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion is a critical documentary that addresses a very controversial topic, whether God is real or not. The main speaker and character in this documentary is Richard Dawkins. He is a scientist that believes that there is no actual proof of the supernatural and divine. He believes that mankind is about evolution and that brought us to be who we are today, however religious leaders or highly religious people believe that creationism is what made humans what we are today. One example when Richard Dawkins addresses the controversial issue that religious people tend to believe what people made up to make sense of the world by implying what the scripture wrote. The death of Mary in Christianity isn't actually written in the Bible, however the pope told the followers that her body shot up to heaven, and eventually people just considered it to be a fact. When interviewing religious leaders and people, one of the people I found the most shocking to hear was Yousef Al Khattab. Yousef used harsh and edgy words where he insulted atheists and straight out denied Dawkin's opinions. Near the end where he says that the atheists needed to "fix your society and fix your women and are letting the women dress like whores". I was really shocked that he had such strong views and opinions. Overall I thought that this movie really addressed the controversy in religion and evolution and I would give the rating a 4/5.

Most likely, this doc will only add to the polarization which already exists between the fundamentalists of religion and those within scientism. One has to wonder who the intended audience is for this movie.

On the one side you have -- as the movie perceives it -- the credulous, servile faithful, with their superstitious theologies. On the other, Almighty Science, with its secular priests. The comment is here made that the two sides are incompatible with each other. Yet, what if both are equally at fault for being close-minded and dogmatic? That is a question too outside-the-box and not oversimplified enough for this movie to contemplate.

All things considered, one needn't be a God-denier or a theocrat to appreciate this documentary.

ROOT OF ALL EVIL? is a two-part presentation, divided into two three-quarter-hour segments: "The God Delusion" and "The Virus Faith." Its host and (voiceover) narrator is a well-known and influential pop-culture icon by the name of Richard Dawkins. Here, this media-genic, scientific celebrity -- absent of a superhero costume -- traverses the globe in search of the miraculous: namely, a place where atheists make up the majority. Globally, religionists outnumber atheists by the hundred millions. The movie provides an opportunity for atheism to weigh in on the God debate after centuries of being relatively nonexistent, and here in a world where monotheistic messages are practically everywhere, this is to some degree welcome.

It is of interest to note that ROOT OF ALL EVIL? focuses primarily, if not exclusively, on those faiths which believe in one god as revealed in scripture, as opposed to polytheism and pantheism. Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Animism are all excluded here.

Dawkins has been described by some as "arrogant." This is not a meme but it is a misnomer. The documentary presents Dawkins as a soft-spoken, somewhat standoffish, gentleman who, when he does raise an objection to what an interviewee has said, responds with an equal amount of (defensive) conviction, as opposed to provocation. To the contrary. Indeed, some of the men this academic superstar converses with here are shown to be quite smug and condescending in their comments and tone towards Dawkins; the latter of whom it must be commended has refused to edit this footage, which tries to make him out to be a scolded ignoramus.

There's a popular metaphysician who is of the opinion that religion is the creation of nonhuman, alien intelligences, with the design of manipulating the masses and keeping them conditioned and divisive. This theory doesn't seem all that far-fetched. If love, peace, joy, and harmony are the professed fruitage identifying the truly faithful, then there just might be a lot more genuinely ungodly people in the world than even self-righteous religionists care to admit.

Dawkins is also to be commended for exposing and condemning religious fascism, the indoctrination of small children, and the subjugation of women by male-supremacists, that occurs within various religious communities. He values civil liberties and critical thinking skills, as should we all. Kudos to Dawkins for upholding these very basic and significant democratic values.

ROOT OF ALL EVIL? is not without its faults, however. It conveniently fails to consider all the evil that has been done in the name of atheistic regimes and by certain destructive scientific discoveries. It also fails to respond to the claim held by a lot of believers that atheism equals immorality. That is simple-minded nonsense. Fact is, there are moral atheists just as there are immoral/hateful/greedy/misogynistic self-professing religionists.

In the end, scientists like to think of themselves as seekers of truth, and yet mainstream empiricists have been known to ignore, marginalize, and suppress information and findings which does not fit nicely into its materialist paradigm and mechanistic notions of the universe. One could argue that at times science is even afraid of things which it cannot (presently) explain; enough to dismiss them, outright. In these instances, it all amounts to science-worshipers deifying rationalism to the point of irrationality, and being as close-minded and dogmatic as those who unquestioningly place their faith in the clergy.

This is a show about nothing! :) Well, about how ridiculous it is to believe in a god that simply isn't there. Dawkings is clearly an anti-theist, not simply an atheist, being rather violent in his search for the supremacy of evidence based logic over dim witted religion.

That is actually the problem with the documentary. The people interviewed on the religious side are simply too far gone to sound remotely lucid. Dawkings chose the people on their religious fervour, therefore they can only look ridiculous in a film based on logic.

The arguments are solid though, no matter their aggressive delivery. One of the things I liked is the ending of the first part from where I quote: "we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in, some of us just go one god further".

By omitting the few good things about religion, Dawkings appears just a extremist as the religious fanatics that preach on about holy armies and the true god. Bottom line: if you are an atheist, there is nothing new in the film that you haven't already thought of yourself; if you believe in god, you will most likely feel attacked and dislike the film.

I'd like to state first of all that I'm an atheist myself. An atheist to the bone, one might say. I'm also a bit of an adept in science. And on the top of that I was raised to be an Orthodox Christian, and was faithful right until, as George Carlin would have said, reaching my age of reason. I've seen best and worst both worlds have to offer.

If you study the history of how any typical religion starts you would most likely stumble upon two major reasons. The first one is that a human brain is a tricky thing, it needs answers and if it doesn't receive them it constructs them. We can only partially behold the world, even now with technologies of adaptive optics and tunneling microscopy we only see a small piece of what the universe has to offer. But we are on the right path, we observe and we draw conclusions, we make simplified models, because the universe is too complex to account for all the factors. We create theories and try to disprove them to reject them or strengthen them. A theory is indeed not a law, it's a sum of our observations and logical conclusions these observations lead to. As the time goes by our understanding is being refined by ever emerging new theories that are deeper and more general than the previous ones.

Then there's a second type of religious origin. One that that you may call "evil". The need of control. A cop in the sky that watches our every move and punishes us if we have a thought of sleeping with our neighbor. Why? Because the Bible, Torah, Koran said so! Do you dare question the holy book? Do you dare defy the authoritarian man with the hat? Most monotheistic religions started as an instrument of control. Indoctrination since the early years, complete obedience, punishment for a free thought.

I can understand why pagan religions started. It was an initial quest for knowledge. A "proto theory" if you may. What I cannot condone though is the cause of monotheism, a two-faced brainwashing machine. I have seen how the religion is being misused by countless people in my faithful days. But you don't even need that to understand it. Look at the holy crusades, inquisitions, holy jihad, and more recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict and children being molested by the clergy. Monotheistic forms of religion are hypocritical and are used for one thing only: completing personal agenda through the cost of human sacrifice. The ends truly justify the means.

On the "documentary". The interviews were rushed and weren't prepared properly. It's what I would call a "blitzkrieg-interviewing". He had no arguments to present to the people he was confronting. All he had was a grudge against religion. It backfired, those people had come from that conversation even more faithful, and Richard Dawkins had come out from it even more of a fool. He was mumbling about "mountains of evidence" and how he "believes in a theory". That's the second greatest flaw with this film. Nobody believes in science, the whole point of science is being skeptical to the end. The only way to know if the theory is reasonable is to get results out of it. See that it works. Airplanes fly, computers calculate and radio stations broadcast because of scientific theories working. Not because we believe in them. That really is the main reason for me to accept that science is the right way to go. It works. Hell, if Jesus could turn water into wine before my eyes and feed thousands with a pair of fishes, I'd be faithful till the rest of my days. But faith doesn't make our combustion engines perform, hydrocarbons do.

Let's point out one of the major hypocrisies of the whole "religion versus science" war. The religious center at the beginning of the film looked quite advanced to me. Would it not be less hypocritical to make a church lit by candles instead of a heavy metal concert arena? Richard also forgot to point out many internal contradictions in the statements of various characters in the movie.

The "documentary" is so incoherent and disjointed, void of structure, arguments and facts and at some points it even seemed to me almost like a blind crusade against religion itself, rather than a rational approach. I would agree on three things with Mr. Dawkins though. Religion and science are incompatible, because they lye on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Whilst religion demands faith, science could not be science without a great deal of skepticism. That religion is indeed a virus. Children really do believe everything they're told. And so you can easily sell them all various flavors of BS. And that if you're being selective in religion, you probably should abandon it altogether. Why believe some things, but not the others? It is true that times change and that religion needs to be interpreted differently in this day and age than its origins. But that's the religion's greatest flaw: there is too much room for interpretations. There are no general truths, you can distort it any way you like. So what's the use of it then?

Humanity had long since outgrown religion. Every human being is the master of his or her own fate. We don't need a savior, we don't need salvation. We need ratio (Latin for reason) above everything else. We don't kill because we don't want the same to happen to us. Morals are not dictated by religion, they're part of our genes. And every war should be fought with solid arguments and facts, rather than with arms and hatred. It's just too bad Richard Dawkins couldn't see that, despite claiming of being rational. In his blind hate towards religion he forgot what being rational means, and ultimately became a zealot himself. A new kind of zealot, but a zealot none the less.

I'm an Atheist, but I found Richard Dawkin's behavior around religious people in this series to be disrespectful. He visited an evangelical church in the US, similar to the type in my city, and he was just rude. The pastor has 3 sins against an elitist like Dawkins: 1) He has a southern accent 2) He was religious 3) He was positive and outgoing. I noticed Dawkins lip trembling through the conversation in apparent anger, and he did *not* approach the conversation coolly as he should have. It is possible to remain friendly and have a debate, something the minister realized but Dawkins seemed oblivious to.

I also noticed he seemed to favor bashing Islam and Christianity, but when he visits Jerusalem he is extremely sympathetic to the Jews, even though they behave like the Third Reich when it comes to Palestinians.

When he meets with a New York Jew who converted to Islam and now lives in Palestine, he seems curiously relaxed at first, then when he realizes the fundamentalist is hard core he loses his temperament again. The fundamentalist raises good issues - in our lands (the Western world) we are seeing more and more human degradation on TV, on the Internet, and in our daily lives. He argues that our women are dressing and acting like whores, and Dawkins doesn't seem to have an answer to this and doesn't seem concerned about this, saying women are deciding to do it themselves. The truth is these young girls are being fed these messages from TV and society - it isn't coming from within these young girls. The culture is becoming bankrupt, and the people foisting these values on the Western world certainly are not Islamic, and they are not devout Christian. Why isn't Dawkins concerned about what Atheists are doing? Overall, I was not impressed with his supposed free thinking. He seems very leftist establishment oriented to me.

Religious fanatics forget one thing. To question what they believe in. While I was watching this documentary it came screaming to me that not just the religious fanatics forget to question but also Richard Dawkins seems to forget to question the "evidence".

The evidence we use to explain evolution for example is based on samples that we found. We are developing a theory based on these evidences. There are several weaknesses in this sentence already. It is the same with religion. if you just believe in this theories whether it is a religious theory or a scientific theory without questioning you become blinded.

I agree with Dawkins who says that religion is blindingly wrong. But if we would raise our children in all our religions to become questioning persons. We don't have to kill ourselves. People have to believe in a reason for being. I do not agree with Dawkins whose ending words in this documentary were that the only way of really enjoying our live is not to believe that after death there is heaven or hell. I don't believe in hell anyway, but the pure thought that there is no real sense in my being and that after I die I go into the big not existence makes me panic. I rather believe that I have to learn some things in this life and that there is a reason for me being here, is more calming. I believe but I thought long and hard in what I believe and what I believe the priests or reverends or pastors tell me might be true and I will never become a fanatic because if you question your believes and especially question the people who supposedly have all the answer, then you might have a chance.

There is a reason why Jesus did not agree with churches!

I find it strange that people like Richard Dawkins make documentaries and books about the evils of religion, when according to him, there's no such thing as evil, or good, or free will for that matter. But if there's no evil, why bother about terrorism and genital mutilation? If people have as much free will as a bag of sugar (as one atheist put it), religious believers, including atheists, just can't help it. Atheism undermines itself.

Richard Dawkins is best known as the leader of the "Cult of Dawkins". A strange form of Darwinian religion made up by 30 or 50 white males between ages 25-55 who use "The God Delusion" as some kind of a Bible ("Dawkins says this, Dawkins says that"). According to one of the many Dawkinsian creation myths, little green men from outer space intelligently designed life on earth. According to another one, there are infinite universes, and infinite versions of yourself. In one of these universes, you have a green mustache. But the most popular myth is that life just decided to created itself. It makes even less sense than Scientology.

Dawkins is also known for his now totally discredited theory about "the selfish gene", and a bunch of other pseudo-scientific books, including a children's book called "The Magic of Reality" which tells kids how meaningless everything really is. Because telling kids that there's a God is child abuse.

He's a big supporter of eugenics, and has made some disturbing comments about "mild" sexual abuse and rape on both his website and on twitter. This caused some of his followers to run away, but the majority stayed with their beloved master. He probably gained some new fans from NAMBLA, though.

The documentary (if it deserves to be called that) "The Root of all Evil?" Came out in 2006. It was very popular among teenagers who shared it with their friends by sites like YouTube. Suddenly, everyone knew about the angry Englishman. The point behind the documentary is to show how evil, stupid and primitive religious people are compared to enlightened atheists. Since Richard Dawkins is a coward, most of of the people he chose (or, his neurons "chose"...remember, kids, no free will in Darwinland) to interview were easy targets. He actually interviewed theologian Alister McGrath, but the interview ended up on the cutting room floor because it would have ruined a good propaganda movie.

Dawkins would later debate John Lennox in front of a large audience. During the debate, it became apparent how weak and pathetic Dawkins' arguments really are. Watching Dawkins in a debate is a lot like watching Mister Burns trying to throw a baseball...funny and sad at the same time.

Some years later he chickened out on a chance to debate William Lane Craig. Many of his fellow atheists admitted that it made him look like a wimp. Chick...uhm, Richard Dawkins claimed that he didn't want to debate Craig because of Craig's defense of infanticide in the Old Testament...which is ironic if you watch Dawkins' conversation with Peter "Let's Screw Animals" Singer, where Dawkins says he's a big fan of infanticide.

Except for a few deluded fans in small, secular countries like Norway and Sweden, Richard Dawkins is no longer considered relevant. To say that you're still a "big fan of Richard Dawkins" will most likely ruin your chance at spreading your selfish genes. Most "serious" atheists now consider him to be a joke.

Sometimes I wonder if Dawkins is trolling. In reality, he's probably a religious believer who's trying to show the world how incredibly stupid atheism is. I bet Dawkins has converted more people to Christianity than C.S Lewis. Maybe we should thank God for people like Richard Dawkins?

The Root of All Evil?/The God Delusion, written by Richard Dawkins, is a documentary in which he tries to argue that the world does not need religion to function, and that it would actually be better off without it. He supports this by examining the miracles that took place at the Lourdes, a discussion with a Jew-turned-Muslim in Jerusalem (whose views are definitely something I disagree with), and so on. He concludes by saying that we should strive to be atheist, rather than religious because it provides so many more benefits than religion does.

Personally, I felt that this documentary was a bit overbearing and biased at times so it hard to keep watching. While I understand that Richard Dawkins is very confident in his beliefs, I felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable around the some of the statements he was making, and the way he would phrase things and act around others, such as the way he acted around the pastor from Colorado Springs. It felt like he was purposely goading them on, and I felt like there was a lack of religious tolerance. It also felt like he was nitpicking the people who would have views strongly agreeing or contrasting with him. He did find some good evidence to support his claims such as some passages from the Old Testament, but the rest felt inconclusive. While I do not outright hate this documentary, I think it could have been much better done.