Root of All Evil?
Root of All Evil?
| 09 January 2006 (USA)
Root of All Evil? Trailers

In this two-part Channel 4 series, Professor Richard Dawkins challenges what he describes as 'a process of non-thinking called faith'. He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science. In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress to become more enlightened and more tolerant.

Reviews
Sophia Park

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

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viamund

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

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Salamander_is

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".

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Brian Bagnall

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.

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