Root of All Evil? (2006)

Memorable, crazy movie

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

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.

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.

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'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.