User reviews

This thought inspiring documentary highlights the arguments which exist against religion, arguments which go completely uncountered by the religious people Dawkins speaks to. People get hung up on the fact Dawkins has not been "respectful" but that is precisely the point of this documentary; it is questioning why people demand a special "respect" for these insane beliefs about sky-fairies and demons etc despite the fact they are self evidently nonsensical. Richard Dawkins has no such hold ups and questions religious beliefs as the scientific assertions they are, making a convincing and clear-cut case against religion in all it's forms. This documentary is a truly inspiring piece of work and should be watched by atheists and the few religious people brave enough to listen to reason instead of believing "bronze age myths".

This is a 90-minutes documentary that examines and challenges religion. It covers an impressive amount, addressing Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Catholicism, without any of them being glossed over. It raises questions that have to be asked, and makes remarkable points. The aggressive and uncompromising way of more than one of the groups should not be ignored. Like The Enemies of Reason, this has disturbing material. This is put together of footage taken from the various areas(including famous sites) that writer Dawkins visited in making this and interviews with people from both sides, several of which are specifically known for their views on the subjects. This is more confrontational and impassioned than the later-produced, aforementioned piece, and this is sure to offend some. I don't think that is as much the intent as a side-effect... I would say that Richard means to provoke exploration, reflection, independent, free thought. I doubt he is particularly likely to go for shock value. The subject matter does perhaps make for more emotional responses, what with the deeply personal nature of it. Richard Dawkins asks great questions, and argues impeccably well. Not always equally respectful, but invariably eloquently and intelligently. I recommend this to any skeptic, and anyone in general who is willing to hear him out. 8/10

This documentary follows scientist Richard Dawkins around the globe to find religion's varied impacts, with a special focus on America and Britain. Dawkins pulls no punches and is quick to shut down anyone in his path. Religion is not given a moment's notice to put up a shield.

For those who are already opposed to religion, this is for you. Like Bill Maher's "Religulous", this documentary follows a known anti-theist around challenging the beliefs of the faithful. It's not at all fair or balanced, which you might want in a documentary. We already know that Dawkins is against everyone he meets and is eager to make them out to look foolish. Not to say he doesn't make good points -- he does -- but religion isn't given a fair shake.

Ted Haggard is particularly lambasted. Haggard brings much of this on himself, insinuating Dawkins' arrogance while he himself comes off as high and mighty. Haggard then proceeds to kick Dawkins off his property, adding to his image as a jerk. However, in Haggard's defense, Dawkins was being arrogant (as usual) and I don't think he was given a chance to explain himself outside of a confrontational setting.

For those of you who've read "The God Delusion", this material will not be new. Dawkins covers similar ground here... the book merely expands on the points he makes. If you haven't read the book, and liked this film, I'd suggest reading it to get a fuller picture. If you didn't like the movie, you may not like the book... it's hard to consider Dawkins unbiased. Either way, I suggest going through the movie (and book) with a strong sense of skepticism.

If you can pick up a copy of this, do it. I think "Religulous" is the better of the two films, but there's certainly plenty of material here to mull over. And together, they make a great pair. Dawkins is a giant in the world of atheism, and his ideas are worth understanding, whether or not he happens to be right.

This documentary provides a great view at religion and its contradictory evilness. As we live in a world that's threatened by religious fanatics and almost all major conflicts are based on religion, shouldn't it be time we start questioning religion? Dawkins does question religion and everything else. And he continually stresses that as opposed to faith, science tries to discover the world and congratulates everyone who makes theories obsolete.

There's a common word used against people like Dawkins - arrogance. But isn't arrogant the one who says he knows everything? Dawkins says he knows nothing but what the facts reveal him.

Fear the one who offers all knowledge for he is lying.

It's about time that somebody made a documentary like this. All religions are the same - foolish superstition -. Do these people actually believe that their holy books and myths were written by divine supernatural pan-dimensional beings? There were written by Human Beings not unlike themselves. There is no longer any purpose for these superstitions. They have no redeeming qualities - unless fear, shame, lies, intolerance and hatred are your ideas of good qualities -. God is dead... it's about time. Try having faith in Humankind instead because that's the only way things get done. Vapid religions succeed in creating hate, praise Mankind instead

I totally agree with everything Dawkins says but the problem with atheists is that they too are fundamentalist believers just like theist ones, they are so sure that what we know yet about the universe, biology and evolution is the absolute truth and everyone else who disagree with them is blind and wrong. I don't believe that god exists (no evidence), we all know that, but I also don't believe that god does not exist as there is no evidence on this claim too, so I can say that I'm an atheist until proved otherwise. but what we think we know about god and the universe which is religion is bad and naive and causing much more harm than good to the human race(hatred, killing in the name of god, terrorism,myths and superstitions blocking our pursuit of the truth about this world). If there is a god somewhere (which I highly doubt given the indifference and lack of interference in our war torn world) I don't think that such a deity who made us in the first place and programmed us (genetics) to be good or evil would burn us in hell for eternity if he's to be fair, and if he's not then why bother praying and dedicating our time and finite resources to the stupid and meaningless rituals that we human beings do throughout our lifetime hoping that in the other life god will reward us and save us from hell when he already decided who wins and who loses.

Richard Dawkins - two thumbs up.

Let's put the facts right: I am an antitheist. I consider somehow important to state that at the beginning of my review. The reason behind it, to put it simple, is that if everybody would let his/her belief dictate his/her actions, the world would be even a worse place. Alright, most people are like that anyway. Although, still, it's silly to follow any belief when humans -generally- can use common sense, and can acquire a great deal of knowledge if desired. I suppose belief and knowledge are contradictory terms. I'll try to simplify further: If it's OK to belief in god, it's also OK for me to belief that, instead of a brain, you have a worm in your head sitting at the controls. Or that anybody but me deserves the worst. For example. For A LOT of people, these beliefs are actual realities, no matter how absurd. Also, a faith is not needed for doing good deeds.

As for the movie itself, there's not much to say about it, since it's self-explanatory. I wish Dawkins would have taken more time to explain why no form of belief whatsoever is appropriate, since there're many people who think that it's OK to worship as long as it's "harmless".

I'd also like to say that science is, in many instances, as dangerous as religion. Let's not forget that many scientists BELIEVE that certain theories are actual truths, and that the creation of weapons, vivisection, environmental destruction and other forms of abhorrent acts are thought of or directly perpetrated by so-called scientists. Science always sold itself for the right price, and will also have an absurd excuse to justify the damage it causes. This is another point shared with religion.

And so, even though it's outrageous to be wasting physical and brain resources (if it can be called that) believing that there're imaginary beings with divine powers floating around when that time could be used for learning practical knowledge to help save the Earth from human destruction, let's keep in mind that people of science are actually part of the problem too.

Alas, the best one can do is get away from any religious or scientific dogma and simply live by taking common sense and reason as a guide for your actions.

Roots of Evil by Richard Dawkins is documentary about how Dawkins tries to prove to people that God is a delusion. In order to prove this, Dawkins visits sites and interviews people with either strong opposing views to debate with them, or people who he believes will strongly agree with him to prove his point that Religion and God is a complete delusion, and that people should really start questioning themselves, and become like he is, a man of Science. As an intellectual man, he does ask some important questions that encourage thinking, but I believe Dawkins is too harshly criticizing religions and is pushing his views on tense circumstances, forcing the cold hard truth on people who have already chosen their faith and belief and that he should just leave people to believe what they want.

I personally found this movie hard to enjoy. While he an intellectual man, he can't seem to be able to accept the fact that not everyone believes in the same thing that he does. I believe that Religion is a very vulnerable and tense subject, therefore is very important not to push things too far. This is what I think Dawkins does by saying going to the Lourdes and after receiving statistics, concludes that all the 66 alleged miracles are meaningless and the conditions would have cleared up naturally. Next, he goes on to say that the "fact" that Mary's body ascended into heaven is an assumption, and that even the pop would have said it was revealed to him by God or that it was actually by word of mouth that this tradition came about and it is wrong. As he moves on to the issue of creationism and evolution. He says that we only have creationism because our world needed a supreme being such as a God to deal with the mystery surrounding us, but now that Science has explained that the Sun is one of billions of stars, he said it is time to abandon the belief of the God. As he debates with many other people, not only are his points not as strong as theirs, but he also doesn't let them freely speak. In fact, the movie even cuts of one man while he is speaking because he probably has a very strong point that Dawkins couldn't rebut.

While Dawkins was definitely proud of his belief and knows it is true, this movie was hard to enjoy as he continued harshly forcing his beliefs on people who clearly did not agree with him.

I thought religions once brought people together and that was a good thing. I used to be a Muslim, but socially, I wasn't really a believer.

As I researched religions, I moved away from religions.

I watched this after watching Religulous and have to say I can't recommend it. It's a straight forward attack as preachy as the people he attacks. Both sides are arrogant and superior sounding to each other as they ask the other to "not be arrogant and superior sounding".

The whole thing seemed an exercise of watching 6 year old kids fighting in a school yard. It was even ironic how Dawkins continuously pushed his faith like a preacher, demanding proof for everything which is a goal not a possibility. All the while forgetting that the basis of science is faith. We can't prove anything in science, all it does is help disprove things and we assume what's left, no matter how improbable is true or real or at least almost so.

I also wish the language he used were less harsh and more objective. It could have a nice documentary instead of verbal porn.

See Religulous instead. It's gentle and funny.

BTW, my 6/10 means it has redeeming values, just barely. Watch it if you're really really bored.

I would like to make it very clear that I am not at all religious. I am an atheist but I could see that Richard Dorkins was contradicting himself over and over again. I would also like to make it known that I am not the sort of person that argues against something with philosophy all the time, but I feel that when comparing science and religion we must be philosophical and be willing to question the belief in main stream science as well as questioning religious beliefs.

I wonder if Richard Dorkins ever spends any time to think philosophically about belief, anyone who thinks long and hard enough about science and religion will realise that science is indeed a religion in itself. Yes there is a fundamental difference between the way that scientific beliefs are held when compared with other religions, but at it's roots, it's faith in a particular human instinct.

Throughout this series, Richard insists that science methods are the only right way of thinking and that it makes sense to believe in something only if the evidence for it is strong enough. If you dig deep enough into how science functions you'll realise that it is just as irrational as religion and that it comes down to faith in the end, faith in the evidence, faith in our sanity, faith in our senses but more than anything else faith in our instinct to follow patterns of recurrence.

This is not easy to explain but think about how the laws of physics were decided, it was because they were and still are the most common patterns of recurrence that we are aware of. I think that human beings have an instinct that makes them believe that the longer something remains in a certain state or place of existence the more we just assume out of blind FAITH that it is more likely to stay like it. For example, we don't expect that gravity will suddenly work in reverse tomorrow, by this I mean pushing matter away as supposed to attracting it. But the only reason why we don't expect this sudden change is because we have known for so long that it has always attracted as far as we are aware. However that doesn't mean that it couldn't do exactly the reverse tomorrow or even right now. It doesn't matter how long something may stay in a certain state or change, there is no rational reason to make assumptions about it but we do out of instinct. I would ask you to consider what is a long and short amount of time? There is no such thing, I don't know exactly how long it took for these supposed wise men to decide that everything must be made out of matter, Sound, Light, etc but lets give them what they would consider to be an edge way! Lets say far longer than it really was 12,00000000000 years! Is that a long period of time? 99999999999999999 years makes 12,00000000000 years seem like an incredibly short period of time. For all we know there could be an extreme amount of change in the so called laws of science within the next trillion years. It's all about comparison, only when we compare things can we say "that is long" or that is short. It's the same with big and small, wide and thin, heavy and light, strong and weak and others.

I doubt that any scientist could tell me why they think that trusting this instinct makes sense. I certainly don't see why it should, but that doesn't mean that we as humanity should necessarily stop using it. With this in mind, the most hypocritical comment that Richard Dorkins made was when he said that faith is irrational, "a process of non thinking" he said. If what we have in this instinct that I've been describing and this instinct that we all possess on some level isn't faith then I don't know what the hell it is. Other times when he is being hypocritical is when he talks about the religions being bronze age, "bronze age myths" he says. I would like to point out that no matter how much scientific methods have been changed over the years due to experience, experiments and evaluating, the pure rules of science are getting older and older all the time! They could even be described as the holy bible of science. He was going on about how he is sick of the different religions being stubborn " I am right, he is wrong" but looking back on how rude he was to the various interviewees, he seems to be just as stubborn him self. To be fair to him, at least he doesn't try to bomb religious communities. I appreciate his hatred for certain religious beliefs that generate war, but I don't respect his arrogance in his own beliefs.

As far as I'm concerned, Richard has the right to believe in science if that is his way. I am scientifically minded as well, but I don't think he has the right to go up to religious leaders having unfriendly arguments, trying to force his opinion on to them and virtually describing them as stupid. Despite all his education, experience and discoveries he seems to fail to have the wisdom to properly question his very own system of belief. I have read what he says in defence of this argument that open minded atheists such as my self put forward, What he states suggests to me that he is totally missing the point.

Finally the title of the documentary, Root Of All Evil. This states that religion is the root of all evil, it isn't true. There are causes of evil that have nothing to do with religion.

All round the documentary series was frustrating, narrow minded, hypocritical and flat-out rubbish.

If the most worshiped being among the disbelievers is the self-aggrandizing, polite-yet-condescending Mr. Dawkins, then that is a belief system that is unappealing to me. I am not sure if that is the same as the religion of "Scientism" but they seem to be good friends in any case.

I am not sure why he questions others religion, but not his own personal belief system, because by so doing, he would be certain of nothing, other than a recognition of various material-based patterns--something a good robot/AI could do. It's almost like he has an objective to disprove religion, and then seeks for all the evidence that supports his belief. Very non-scientific in approach.

Also, I dont think Dawkins understands much outside of chemical/biological processes, because as a sociologist, I can tell you religion is extremely functional most of the time, not merely dysfunctional as he "believes", regardless of his tendency to resort to the availability heuristic (sounds like he watches news); but he seems to be oblivious to such functional values, showcasing his ignorance on the topic. Perhaps due to his biased circumstances/place-in-time/limited education on the topic-he's a victim of circumstance so I dont hold him accountable.

Mass violence is often, but not by any means exclusively, the result of power gone awry.

In fact, lets consider an alternative to religions being the cause of so much death. Democide has killed far more people than murders, traffic accidents, and even wars (unless you consider govt is behind most of those too), and interestingly, I found that most of the largest ones were due to non-theistic motivations, usually financial, and most reasons were considered "rational" by those whom employed it, even if it meant blaming "God."

IF we spent a lot more time questioning rationalism, we would probably find a lot of weaknesses, like how it changes so often, becomes a tool for abuse too often (e.g. Modernity and the Holocaust), and limited reasoning.

E.g. "Another commentor said We don't kill because we don't want the same to happen to us." but that leaves numerous questions like: why would someone else kill us? wouldnt it only matter then if we could get away with it? if there were no govt. laws or enforcement would this still be true (see chicago and south america)? why should I equate another human to myself as it is unnecessary and irrational? we will always the remain the victims of subjective values, so we will never find a single "truth" nor common objective in societal values, so why bother, unless you are trying to convert us?

The modern man, singular in history, carries the unusual pride of living in his own era - a novel sentiment born from the marvel of technology and a Promethean mindset. We proclaim that science unveils the mysteries of nature, imagining ourselves freed from illusions and superstitions. Yet science itself rests upon beliefs and subtle superstitions, differing only in form from those that existed before the Enlightenment. The "scandal of reason," as Kant called it, persists: we cannot conclusively prove the simple evidence of an external world independent of ourselves. Karl Popper, with prudent diplomacy, suggested that this external world is merely a working hypothesis for natural science, careful not to offend the sensibilities of the modern spirit.