The God Who Wasn't There
2005
Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture. Super Size Me did it to fast food. Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion. Holding modern Christianity up to a bright spotlight, this eye-opening documentary asks the questions few dare to ask. "Did Jesus even exist?" is just the beginning for The God Who Wasn't There. Read more
| Starring | Richard Carrier, Richard Dawkins, Alan Dundes |
|---|---|
| Director | Brian Flemming |
| Genres | Documentary |
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The God Who Wasn't There
Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture. Super Size Me did it to fast food. Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion. Holding modern Christianity up to a bright spotlight, this eye-opening documentary asks the questions few dare to ask. "Did Jesus even exist?" is just the beginning for The God Who Wasn't There.
| Starring | Richard Carrier, Richard Dawkins, Alan Dundes |
|---|---|
| Director | Brian Flemming |
| Run time | DVD: 5 hrs 20 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Documentary |
| Language | English |
| Released | DVD: 06 Jun 2007 Production year: 2005 |
| Format | DVD |
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Most helpful member's review
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32 out of 37 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Unconvincing and without balance.
The buzz about this documentary is that it would do for God what Michael Moore did for Gun culture and Morgan Spurlock did for fast food. With such a lofty aim you'd expect a full on assault on belief in Jesus. Instead you get a few little ounches that never really connect. The film delivers a poor counter argument against the existence of Jesus. There are various incosistencies here, not least is what he might call his smokling gun text Luke 19:27 ('bring my enemies and kill them in front of me') He quotes it as if Jesus said this in isolation, whereas its from the words of a King in a parable told by Jesus. Other verses like Hebrews 8:4 are also out of context.
He keeps saying that Christians ought to prove their faith, but seems to forget that atheism takes faith too. It's good that these things get made, to encourage debate and discussion. Believe it or not, most Christians do actually think about their faith and come to intellectual conclusions on its truth, but are open to discuss and consider alternative views. Flemming seems to have his mind firmly made up, but his unconvincing pile of evidence does little to topple the God he sets out to expose.
The documentary itself is fairly well made, though does have an home made feel. There's a great use old video footage. There's a decent amount of extras with slideshows, commentaries. The most interesting one is the end of the slide show where he makes an advert for a belief system to stand against faith: 'Universalism' which ends up looking just like another religion which he has been trying to dismantle all this time. -
Most recent members' review
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11 out of 13 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
There are much better arguments than this film
This documentary is probably more appropriately labelled as a mockumentary. Flemming starts with the premise that believers are idiots (or perhaps, at best, lemmings) and prefers to throw stones and poke fun rather than analyze.
'The God Who Wasn't There' is basically an hour-long rant in the one-sided style of Michael Moore. Unlike Moore, though, Flemming doesn't 'win' his antagonistic interviews. The head of Village Christian Schools (which Flemming attended), for example, makes Flemming look disingenuous, if not foolish, and the viewer applauds his abrupt ending of the interview by walking off camera (he's particularly sympathetic in the extended interview).
There are any number of works that compare belief against history and/or the Bible, itself. These are not necessarily in film format, so less accessible, but much better and more professionally approached, reasoned, and argued. Two that I've read are (1) Harold Bloom's 'Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Devine' which, incidentally, doesn't necessarily disagree with some of Flemming's assertions (e.g., the Old Testament's God is very different from Jesus and the New Testament's God the Father - basically, 'Christianity' was created by Paul), and (2) Charles Freeman's 'The Closing of the Western Mind', which deals with the political foundations enabling the rapid spread of the Christian church and its effect on culture of the 4th century through to today. These, of course, require several hours of reading vs a 60-min venting session. -
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The God Who Wasn't There
Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture. Super Size Me did it to fast food. Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion. Holding modern Christianity up to a bright spotlight, this eye-opening documentary asks the questions few dare to ask. "Did Jesus even exist?" is just the beginning ...
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