The God Who Wasn’t There

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Written by Basil on 04/16/2006 2:00 PM. Filed under:

Christianity

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Claiming to be a documentary on the level of Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine, The God Who Wasn’t There aims to prove that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, that the pre-existing myths and legends that prefigure his coming prove that his story is fabricated.

Those of you revolted by such a claim may calmly and kindly go on to the next blog, please. Those of you without enough wits to calmly entertain the film should do the same. The rest of you (hopefully the majority of my educated, enlightened readers) need to get your hands on this DVD. Don’t buy it if you insist. (That would be “supporting the marketing machine.” Whatever.) My gut tells me this will be more popular than you may want to admit. It will certainly spawn questions that you will want to be able to answer.

Some things that jump out at me from the trailer:

They’ve interviewed or enlisted the help of a member of the Jesus Seminar. You may want to be familiar with the composition of the Seminar and be able to discuss the academic credentials of various members. Calmly and intelligently, without ad hominems.
Richard Dawkins was mentioned. A scientist who believes science can disprove the existence of God. Perhaps we have some reliability issues here. Don’t focus on his faulty philosophy of science or his lack of a philosophy of religion; focus on whether he is speaking to something within his realm of authority. I smell Argument from False Authority.
C. S. Lewis said that prefiguring myths and legends that speak of gods becoming men and the rest are exactly what we would expect if Christianity were true. He says it much better than me (or you, I suspect), so you may want to be familiar with his essay on the matter.

Use the comments section to discuss what you find.

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One Response to “The God Who Wasn’t There”

Victoria Says:
April 17th, 2006 at 10:35 am
That “neener neener” tone always makes me crazy. If you’re *right*, you don’t need neener neener.

Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention, and for your very sensible suggestions on dealing with it.