O Deus Que Não Estava Lá

I was fortunate to catch the standing-room-only world premiere in San Francisco. The audience was riveted throughout, and emotions ranged from laughter to shock to anger to fright. The film's editing, while slightly clumsy, weaves in and out of the theme of stripping Christian beliefs bare and exposing the shallow limits of what they believe or even want to think about.

Extended gruesome scenes from Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ" were hard to watch, but necessary to glimpse at what was in the movie that was so popular with Christains.

I think a "believer" would start questioning his or her faith after seeing "The God Who Wasn't There." Hopefully this movie won't just be "preaching to the choir" of the freethinking crowd that is its natural audience.

The hip electronica/techno/new age soundtrack, mixed with bits of religious chanting and gospel grooves, is as provocative as the film. The first instinct is to get up and dance, but a close listen to the lyrics and voice-overs force the brain to work harder than the body.

This is an interesting film for Christians and atheists alike, and not at all what I was expecting. Rarely is faith approached in such a commonsense, factual way. The film maker's personal investment in the documentary is a big part of what makes it compelling. The first half of it is basically a summary of the known historical facts around the figure of Christ. The second half of it delves into modern Christians' (particularly American Christians) knowledge and understanding of the origins of the modern religion. There are some pretty tense moments when the film maker discusses the foundations of the faith with his former school principle. All in all, an interesting film well worth watching.

This program may have 10 minutes of good information; otherwise it's snotty putdowns of religious people. It's as if director Brian Flemming only recently discovered both atheism and sarcasm, and feels with these tools he can easily bludgeon his opposition.

As for his "Christ never walked the earth" thesis, it doesn't get a chance here because Flemming wanders extensively into his own personal issues, and they take over the movie, never getting back on topic. I'm not studying the writings of Saul/Paul to find out how air-tight this all is, but a quick browse of Wikipedia suggests most of these arguments are discredited.

Anti-religious people will want more data. We don't need to be told that religious people are nutty, any more than American Jews need to be told how annoying Christmas music gets by mid-December.

Religious people tend to discount skeptics whose objections to religion are obviously rooted in abusive upbringings. Arguments from such victimized people are dismissed as irrational, and therefore unconvincing.

In the best scene, the Superintendent of Fleming's childhood Christian school rather insightfully confronts the director on his motivations. That seems like the most honest part of the movie, and it was short. If Fleming were a bit more self-aware, he might have a good story in him about his own (past & current) relationship to Christianity, and the abusive institutions that indoctrinated him in his youth.

The bonus interviews are pretty good, tho they don't bolster Fleming's thesis much. Sam Harris is a good spokesperson for the anti- religious POV, and he doesn't go light on those other, non- Christian religions. Harris also has some good (and easily Google'd) interviews on Salon.com , Amazon.com , and Samharris.org .

This movie (more like a documentary) was very well put together, entertaining and very informative, and like with any documentary, the information contained should be researched and verified. Brian Flemming makes it easy to do. The content is not derogatory to Christians (although, they may disagree) and the information included should be known to them (although, their churches would disagree). The movie makes some very good points about the most basic of peoples beliefs and will lead to a heavy debate (unless you watch it alone). I have shared this movie with quite a few people already, most give great reviews, the only negative so far...it's not long enough. While I enjoyed the bonus interviews, I found the background sounds a bit distracting.

Like many alternative documentaries, this one starts strong, with little known facts and strong evidence for its main thesis.

However, it lets itself down when it degrades into polemic and blatant subjective reporting. This is not to say it is not entertaining and informative. Just a bit disappointing.

If the purpose was to convert (or is that upgrade) any Christians to some other view, it probably lost most of its potential audience when reporting became attacking.

Let me be clear, I am not a Christian. Growing up I was fed the same dogma as the narrator of this docu. I outgrew it, as all Christians eventually will - at least according to my understanding of the world and the views of people such as Ken Wilber, Jane Loevinger and the theories of spiral dynamics.

Unfortunately unknown to himself, the narrator is the unwitting victim of the same vices he accuses the Christians of - Rightness. He is sure he is right. As are his enemies, the Christians.

His attack is a textbook example of the rationalist attacking conformists. Perhaps in time he will move up to the level of pluralist and allow others to have their own views, while holding his own. He will realize that the conformists are as necessary to civilization as any of the other memes.

Enough said. Entertaining, but could have been better without the not so subtly hid personal agenda and sarcasm.